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April Fools! Congress proposes bailing out politicians
Published on April 1, 2009 09:20 AM
Category: Taxpayer Financed Campaigns
Yesterday, congressional supporters of campaign finance restrictions filed their bill to enact taxpayer-financed campaigns at the congressional level. It's too bad they didn't wait to roll out this silly idea on a more appropriate day — like today, an appropriate commemoration of April Fools Day.
You'd have to be a fool to think the public is going to buy a half-thought out scheme to bailout politicians with taxpayer money.
CCP published an op-ed in today's Washington Examiner detailing why the bill is a bad idea. Bloomberg and The Washington Post covered the roll out. The text of the bills, jointly introduced in the House and Senate, are not yet publicly available, but there are likely to be constitional questions about some of the provisions in the legislation.
One of the main theme being emphasized is that taxpayer financing of congressional elections would allow politicians not to have to spend time raising money. See this piece by the American News Project, which notes: "[p]ublic financing supporters often cite the corrupting influence of money in politics as the primary motivation for reform, but [Sen.] Durbin and his bipartisan coalition focused on the issue of fundraising as an enormous time drain on public servants trying to carry out the business of government."
The underlying subtext is that incumbents — who overwhelming win re-election and are often in districts where there is a huge uphill battle to beat them anyway — have decided that they shouldn't have to work for re-election anymore. Instead of earning their position by raising money from supporters (one barometer of viability) they say government should write them a welfare check so that they can keep their jobs again and again.
Taxpayer financed elections are a silly idea, and hopefully Congress treats it as such.
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