Written February 10, 1997
Here they go again talking about the need for Campaign Finance Reform. Everybody is afraid that someone else has more influence with the politicians than they do. And they all have solutions:
- We need to limit how much anybody can contribute.
- We need to stop ‘in-kind’ contributions.
- It isn’t right that rich people can spend as much of their own money as they want when they run for office.
- Get rid of PAC’s.
- The problem is ‘soft’ money.
- Corporations shouldn’t be able to contribute.
- We have to get ‘Big Money’ out of politics.
- Candidates for Congress shouldn’t be able to accept money from outside their district or state.
- We need tougher reporting requirements.
And on, and on, and on…
The problem isn’t that everybody is trying to buy influence with politicians.
The problem is that politicians have so much power that you’d be crazy not to get one or more of them in your hip pocket!
Speaking strictly in terms of Return On Investment, buying a politician can bring tremendous returns. A few thousand dollars might get a small business hundreds of thousands in regulatory relief. Throw a hundred thousand around and you could get millions in tax subsidies or outright grants!
If you’re trying to eliminate corruption*, it will not come out of making tougher rules (on which we can never agree) or by keeping a really, really, close eye on politicians and contributors. We need to limit the influence not of contributors, but of politicians.
Why not try limiting government to its Constitutionally-defined roles? Then crooked politicians wouldn’t be able to throw millions in taxpayers’ money to their friends and business associates. Novel idea, huh?
*Those advocating “reform” don’t really want to eliminate influence peddling. But they do want to control who can buy influence. That’s all this clamor for “reform” is all about. Everyone wants to eliminate the other guy’s influence.