The Freedom Bulletin

As you probably know, the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday to loosen limits on political spending by corporations. Corporations, unions, and other organizations are now allowed to runs ads explicitly supporting candidates at any time they want to during campaigns.

This ruling makes sense – why shouldn’t corporations and non-profits be allowed to explicitly support candidates if they are already allowed to run ads un-explicitly supporting candidates? But after a little thinking, I believe that the whole system of campaigns being financed by private donations is far from ideal.

Here’s an idea that I came up with – it might be radical and other libertarians might not like it, but here goes. What if campaigns weren’t financed by donations at all? Suppose that people and organizations weren’t allowed to donate to campaigns. Instead, TV channels and radio stations could be required to allocate a certain number of ad slots, for free, to each candidate in elections.

Some people might find it unappealing for the government to be able to tell TV channels and radio stations what to do. But now, we have a system in which political influence and ability to win elections depend on money. Campaign finance is collectively self-defeating, like a nuclear arms race. Say, for example, that I donate $100 to candidate A, and you donate $100 to candidate B. Seeing that the candidates are now tied again, I give $100 more to A. Then you give $100 more to B to tie up the race again. This could keep going on until we’ve each given $1 million to our preferred candidate, and the outcome – the candidates being tied – would be the same as if we’d given nothing. Doesn’t seem like that was a waste of money? Wouldn’t it be better if we could keep our money for ourselves without having to feel like we are letting the candidate we don’t like win?

Not only does the current campaign finance system limit politics to the well-off, it’s just wrong for anyone – rich or poor – to have to pay money to run for office. The ability to share your views with the world shouldn’t be a commodity, and a candidate’s likelihood of winning shouldn’t depend on the amount of money they and their followers are willing to sacrifice. It’s such a waste for losing candidates who spend millions of dollars on nothing, and even for winning candidates whose victory comes at a huge financial cost.

Another perk of my system: it would greatly help third-party and independent candidates, since TV and radio would have to give the same amount of ad time to all candidates.

Further reading:

• CNN: Supreme Court eases restrictoins on corporate campaign spending
• Economy Watch: US Supreme Court: No to Campaign Finance Limits

Left-wing socialists across the country have been opining that Republicans did so badly in the election because conservatism is a dying, obsolete philosophy that Americans are beginning to abandon. Well, they are wrong. I know the real reason why conservatives did so badly on November 4th – because liberals bought the election.

Take Barack Obama, for example. He spent $573 million, while John McCain, who accepted public financing, spent only $293 million. It is simply not right that one candidate can have a half-hour long infomercial on all the major networks and the other candidate cannot.

Another great example of liberals buying the election is Question 1 – the initiative to repeal the Massachusetts income tax. It sickens my heart that Question 1 was defeated 70% to 30%. There would have been no drawbacks to eliminating the state income tax and a huge benefit, namely people getting to keep their money! However, because opponents of Question 1 raised $4.5 million and supporters raised only $431,000, the government theives were able to run deceptive TV ads to brainwash the people of Massachusetts into making the irrational, immoral choice.

It is sad that people are so easily influenced by propaganda instead of thinking for themselves. The amount of money a candidate or group has should not affect their chances of winning an election. I believe that campaign spending limits need to be implemented. I don’t believe in public financing because the government shouldn’t spend money on anything but the military, the justice system, and roads, but I also don’t think campaigns should be able to spend as much as they want. Financial arms races are a waste of money, time, and energy and are collectively self-defeating. To ensure fair elections in which people have a chance to make their own decisions instead of being brainwashed, the government needs to limit the amount of money campaigns are allowed to spend.

Sources for stats:
Center for Responsive Politics (OpenSecrets.org)
SouthCoastToday.com