by Greg Slack

Created on: March 26, 2008

SHOULD THE US GOVERNMENT HELP FUND ELECTION CAMPAIGNS?

I say yes to this and my reasons are simple and to the heart of the matter. In the current US election climate, the candidate with the most money almost always wins. Issues, policies, and qualifications matter less and less when a candidate can buy enough TV time. "The bigger the lie, the more people will believe it", is never truer than in American media.

By having private funding of campaigns especially in the later sections of an election, the candidates are more often chosen by corporations than by the public. Frankly, the last eight years have shown what a mistake that can be.

I am not saying that outside funding should not be allowed, instead limited and monitored. In my idea private funding can be used up until the primaries, and then slowly tapered off until no outside money coming into the general election. This will allow business and other groups to have some influence, but not be the driving force behind a candidate. In addition, by waiting until the final two candidates are left, costs for the government will be lessened.

My ideas of course are not fool proof, and will not guarantee the best man for the job. However, they would insure fair play for the final two candidates. No one would be able to buy an election or be compromised by outside influences going into the finals.

To justify my claims one need only look back to the last election. An outside group was able launch a smear campaign against a candidate, based on complete nonsense. This group made all kinds of claims and character attacks, while claiming to be an outside group wanting the best for America. It has come to light now that they were in fact an arm of conservative Republican Party backers, which were on the payroll of some of the largest contributors to the Republican Party of Texas.

Their website went down soon after that election was over, and for some strange reason the candidate they claimed was so bad for America, has been able to continue to serve as senator to his state, with no further attacks from them. Strange how a group that felt so strongly one minute, can evidently not care anymore. Kind of ruins the point of having a special interest group, when the interests are so flighty.

This kind of campaigning is bad for America, and will most assuredly continue unless something is done about it. Sure the Republican Party can say they had nothing to do with it, but their top contributors paid for them to exist. That's like saying a fence for stolen goods is not a criminal, and cannot be responsible for buying the stolen goods because they stole them of their own accord. This is pathetic logic, and needs to stop.

By doing something about election funding we can hopefully start a trend of people taking responsibility for their own actions. Stopping this "I didn't do it even though I profited and gained from it so it's okay", attitude that has become so prevalent.

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