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Americans Prefer Presidential Candidates to Forego Public Funding...
Published on April 30, 2007 09:45 PM
by Brad Smith
File Under: Taxpayer Financing
So says the headline at the Gallup Organization, and who are we to disagree? It's not even close - the margin is 56%-39%. Only 20% think that the "record amounts" being raised will lead to a worse president. What is most interesting to us, though, is that support for government financing drops as income drops - that is, the poorest are those most likely to oppose tax financing, by a 65% to 29% margin once income falls below $30,000. This supports our longstanding suspicion that government financing is a plaything of the well to do. It is, as Justice Breyer might call him, "Joe Moneybags" who wants the government to pick up the tab, not "Ordinary Joe."
This opposition is consistent with polling Rasmussen Research has conducted for the Center for Competitive Politics. It is consistent with other polling on the topic. And it is consistent with dwindling national support for the tax earmark that funds the presidential campaign fund, where support has dropped below ten percent.
It is not surprising that this is so. Why should taxpayers pay for a government program that fails to yield the benefits claimed for it, and which would be paid for voluntarily by citizens otherwise? In the last year, a good deal of attention has been paid to trying to reign in budgetary earmarks. This earmark should be one of the first to go.
