Ever since the political revelers danced their way out of the inaugural balls, campaign finance issues haven’t been front and center on either the public or the political stage. After all, if you haven’t heard, America — along with the rest of the world — is in quite an economic mess.
The federal government’s fix for the economic crisis has been a surge — if that’s a strong enough word — in federal spending to bailout financial giants that are "too big to fail." But using taxpayer dollars to prop up Wall Street hasn’t been an uncontroversial move anywhere, most notably on Main Street. Indeed, more than a few people are worried about the runaway spending spree and record budget deficits that Americans will have to be pay off at some point in the future.
So we here at CCP were a little surprised to learn earlier this week, in a National Journal article, that "a growing chorus of campaign finance reform advocates insist this is their moment … to publicly fund not only presidential elections, but House and Senate races as well." (emphasis added)
Under the yet-to-be-fully-unveiled taxpayer financing plan being pushed by Common Cause and other "reform" groups, politicians who "qualify" would
(1) "receive an up-front grant" of taxpayer money, "based on the average costs of winning campaigning in recent elections, for their primary campaigns, and if nominated, another grant" of taxpayer money "for their general election campaign"; and
(2) "also receive a [taxpayer-funded] match (possibly $4 for each $1 raised) for contributions of $100 or less from an individual" up until "a certain spending level is reached."
Additionally, "[a] new independent [taxpayer-funded] commission w[ould] administer the program, including the disbursal of funds and collection of reports." (Because the government has proven itself to be so good at overseeing the pay out and administration of taxpayer money.)
These "features" really raised our eyebrows here at CCP because not only are there any number of serious constitutional concerns with such taxpayer financing of all federal elections, but also this would amount to yet another huge taxpayer expense for Main Street’s favorite group of people — politicians.
That links us back up with the news of right now. The biggest story this week has been Main Street’s outrage over the lack of thanks — and perceived arrogance — of Wall Street after the American people sacrificed their tax dollars to provide a life line for the financial community. As you almost certainly have heard, AIG’s executives — not to mention others like those running some big investment banks and mortgage giants — repaid the favor by going ahead with bull market size bonuses after having gotten their hands on taxpayer bailout funds.
The last paragraph of the National Journal piece on the push for taxpayer financing of all federal elections does note that, "[o]f course, public financing will be no easy sell in Congress."
No doubt. After the outrage of this week — not to mention the general outrage over any government bailouts at all — we wonder what Main Street’s reaction would be if the politicians enact a bailout program for their own campaigns in the form of taxpayer financing for all federal elections?
Stay tuned.
