Forum Post: Question: Why should campaigning cost so much money?
Posted 12 years ago on Dec. 2, 2011, 9:33 a.m. EST by ohmygoodness
(158)
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Answer: Because it enables corruption.
Remedy: Today with the Internet and Video conferencing this spending is outrageous. Hence campaign costs should be capped and be in accordance with the job.
All campaign funds have to be posted on the website of the potential candidate, all donors be made known, all pledges made to the donors, all documents signed by the candidates should also be published on the website.
If the above or similar variations of the above are not adhered to, elections should be invalidated.
An option is to provide free TV commercial broadcasts for political parties.
Because tv commericilas are really effective on the 99% sheeple, and they cost a lot of money.
Its really that simple
Vote your values.
Use the Internet.
Don't allow the parties to lock you into their compartmentalized horse race.
Bypass the party ballot access subversion of OUR democracy by creatively using the Write-In option, en masse.
http://www.fec.gov/
You can see some of the information there. Committees backing candidates, monetary amounts they gave, etc. Of course, to find out who backs a PAC, you have to look up that PAC. And, of course, what promises and pledges made between donors and candidates remain unknown. There are limitations to what can be given to campaigns:
http://www.fec.gov/pages/brochures/contriblimits.shtml
But that's what a person, or group, can donate. There's no limit to how much the campaign itself can collect. Part of that is in travelling to areas so the public can meet these candidates for themselves. While the amounts raised are above and beyond these needs, it is illegal for them to use those funds for private purposes. I don't know without research, however, if anyone has ever been found guilty of doing that and what the punishment was. Personally, I feel anything less than loosing their position in office or being banned from the election is way too lenient. It's pretty much embezzlement. A regular person would get fired for that, and possibly even do time in jail depending on the amount embezzled. Why shouldn't our politicians?
It's not a bad idea at all, though, to limit how much in total the campaign can take in, though. At the very least it might limit the number of times we have to put up with their ads being played over and over again. At most we might actually get some people running for office who wouldn't stand a chance against these candidates under the current system.
It is not so much limiting how much they can take, it is how much IS ALLOWED to be spent.
People can donate as much as they want, all the extra monies above the above cap should then go to in a common pot which is allocated to government election expenditure.
Furthermore, the term in office must be limited see below an earlier post, from MGwynn petitioning signatures. Forum Post: Congressional Term Limits Petition MGwynn (Schertz, TX)
https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/petition/amend-constitution-limit-congressional-terms-3-two-year-terms-house-and-2-four-year-terms-senate/n4Y8FxCw
That's true, by limiting their term in office, maybe it'll make politicians realize they only have so long to make any real impact. Plus guarantees that even if someone corrupt gets in, they only have so long to foul things up.
But I don't see the point of the common pot. Seems like giving the government more money to mess with - and they haven't proved very good at being able to handle money, have they?
The pot with a purpose - Government TV costs, Election costs especially to check against Fraud, Educate the voter costs (to ensure true democracy)
The pot to be controlled and audited by the people's committee.
Along these lines...
I'm still not sold on that idea. It seems like asking the fox to guard the hen house. I still think limiting what they take in is a better idea than limiting what they spend. Allowing excess money to collect somewhere, even for the causes you listed, sounds like a recipe for trouble.
Educating voters starts with educating the public. People have a compete lack of knowledge of issues effecting their own area, let alone their country, let alone the world. I'm not clear how this fund would help with that.
You are spot on in describing the voters' - MSM has numbed and then killed people's capability to think so that they swallow everything that is fed to them.
1) educate them via multi media on the constitution, their history and rights and responsibilities.
2) open their minds in rejecting acceptance of status quo if unjust. (eg socialism is equated with dirty, however when practised in favor of the big banks it was not called socialism and capitalism got diluted somewhere in bogeyman cries); if more money is distributed amongst a larger and healthier middle class the economy is bound to prosper on the long run; the super wealthy can but spend so much, a fraction of the economic power of a larger prosperous middle class, so how does a country achieve this.
3) educating them in exercising their vote in such times is crucial. Explaining and educating the economics of debt money vs government-issued money
4) educating them in urgent environmental issues and the futility of war except in feeding the Military Industrial Complex etc. through hate.
and more still to be delineated, you get the idea. This all costs money so that the pot of money is really for the people, society, country and world
It also guarantees that "ordinary" people can never hope to hold a public office.
The Main expense is advertising because TV is an expensive medium. Rather than cap campaign costs, TV stations should be required to provide political ads at 1/10th normal rates. If they disagree, have the FCC revoke their license and sell it to someone else who will serve the public instead of abusing the People's Ownership of the Airwaves.
That already happens. In fact that publicly-available information shows Obama received 5 times more donations from corporations than McCain did (or any current candidate). That really is no surprise to me, but some people find it shocking. Why?
Agree with TV costs - maybe Government channels should be the only TV campaigning media. (Guess who controls the MSM )
Capping costs will ensure that campaign costs are not high to attract corruption and people minds are not numbed because of the overload in campaigning and that the candidates will have to cut to the chase and government and congress spend their time looking after the country and not their seats - so campaigning will not be long drawn. Thinking about it campaigning should start 3 - 4 months before elections rather than a year or more.
The congress and whitehouse and senate is controlled by A I P A C even us IRS superiors fear our AIPAC masters. If you want to reduce the cost of buying politicians you must remove the AIPAC master that over-see's the gate-keeping process to political access.
Believe in the power of the people, all might falls before justice.
Harnessing the will of the people is what will do it.