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Politics : View from the Center and Left

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To: Lane3 who wrote (8695)	1/11/2006 7:14:55 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) of 541761

I like the "shut the candy store" idea much more, but I'm not sure if it is possible, Public financing of campaigns. Well I generally don't like expanding public financing of anything, and I don't like the idea of the extra control that might be applied with the financing ("The Golden rule - He who has the gold makes the rules") or the fact that people would be forced to subsidize political viewpoints that they find horrible and aberrant. I'm also not sure it will be effective. Presumably private financing will still be available (at least to those who don't accept the public financing). If it is then you still have the possibility for corruption through campaign finance and if it isn't I have serious freedom of speech issues with the scheme. If you make the public financing so generous and unrestricted as to cause no one to need or want private financing it will be expensive, and are you really going to dump a ton of money on the Natural Law Party, and the Communist Workers Party so they can campaign for president? (If you make matching donations then they still need to raise the private financing). Also the problem is not just campaign finance. There are plenty of other opportunities for corruption from the outright illegal but still possible (like direct bribes), to the more subtle and indirect "grey areas" (maybe the company who wants a change in regulation opens a factory in the politicians district, or hires his cousin, or promotes some of his political ideas, or contributes to his favorite charities, or hires the politician after his term is up). I think any serious effort to stamp out corruption risks doing more harm then good. If you restrict one avenue then people will find ways around the restrictions. Trying to impose tight restrictions on all possible methods would require and efficient and energetic totalitarian regime. The advantage of the "Close the candy store" idea is that it reduces the incentive for corruption, and it doesn't impose restrictions on individual freedom. Tim

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