by Joseph Whalen

Created on: January 12, 2010   Last Updated: January 13, 2010

For a country that is trillions of dollars in debt, has homeless people living on the streets of our major cities, have families forced to go hungry or seek assistance from the government because of economic hardships, we certainly do like our multi-million dollar political campaigns. 

With all that is wrong with our country that could be fixed with some creative ideas and a little financial assistance, we seem more content to allow politicians to spend millions of dollars each election year to buy the office of their choice. 

It boggles the mind to think that the money wasted on thousands of campaign signs that go ignored on the roadside, annoying automated unsolicited political telephone calls and countless radio and television ads sniping at political opponents couldn’t be used for a more constructive end.

It’s blatantly obvious that the current political system in the United States is geared towards big business and big money. Grass roots candidates who champion the ideals and principles of the common public don’t stand a chance against the mega machine political parties who are able to shuffle around tens of millions of dollars in contributions from lobbyist, business supporters and other special interest groups looking to buy the influence that our band of corrupt politicians are all too willing to peddle to the highest bidder. 

All the while the average citizen is ignored and left by the wayside as large donors garner the support and interest of their candidate of choice who typically manages to buy their way into political office.

To add insult to injury, the current campaign law allows for matching public funds for national campaigns. So not only do politicians raise money in the form of campaign contributions that could very easily be construed as bribes for legislative favoritism, they can also apply for matching public funds which ultimately are funded by us the tax payers. 

As a result we have national campaigns for political office that run in the tens of millions and often hundreds of millions of dollars. To what end? To put another politician in a position where they can raise our taxes, misappropriate government funds, abuse the overall system and provide kick backs to the anonymous supporters who put him in office in the first place? 

Our political system in this country is broken; it has been broken for a very long time and is only getting worse.

Spending limits on political campaigns is the first step to reforming our political system back into something resembling the democratic ideals of our founding fathers. The concept of career politicians would have astounded the revolutionary ideals they held so dear. 

So would the concept of businesses wielding more political power than Congress itself. Yet these are some of the symptoms of the ailing political system we are faced with today. Limiting the amount of money that could be spent on campaigns would help to eliminate the influence big business and wealthy special interests have over the political system. 

While not a solution to all of our political woes, this is a step in the right direction. Short of outlawing any political contribution in favor of private funding which would only result in rich citizens being elected to office, limits on campaigns and other reforms such as mandatory term limits on all offices, restrictions on who can make contributions, restrictions on affiliations and relationships politicians can have with organizations outside of the government and other financial reforms, will help to give the political process back to the people.

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