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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: greenspirit who wrote (28777)	8/9/2000 7:07:13 PM
From: Bill	Respond to of 769667

Any rational person would agree that Gore is a campaign finance abuser, not reformer. Beyond that fact, true campaign finance "reform" creates several difficulties. The most often cited trouble with the McCain Feingold bill was that it infringed on a citizen's first amendment rights to free speech and assembly. If congress had passed it, it surely would have been proven unconstitutional when it reached the SC. (Nevertheless, it served as a launch platform for McCain's presidential run.) Further, taxpayer funding of campaigns is not only elitist, it is unpopular, as fewer and fewer people are checking the box. And, every dollar that goes to a campaign is a dollar that doesn't pay down the debt. The problems with the current system focus on corporations or other special interests buying influence. Of course, without this influence, union membership, as one example, would be nil, even less than the 12% level in today's private sector. Doesn't stop the Gore camp from self-serving platitudes though. Naturally, if someone is buying influence, someone else must be selling it. We should start our campaign finance debate by electing politicians that won't sell their influence to the highest bidder. And the highest bidder these past 8 years has been China.