Publicly funded elections
By laglen
@laglen (19759)
United States
June 26, 2010 9:38am CST
Hawaii is test driving publicly funded elections this year. I find this to be an interesting concept. The fund, created by tax payers donating $3 from their income tax forms, divides the money equally among candidates. Some pros and cons, it keeps out private money and lobbyists, maybe encourages more average joes to run, a big point against the program is funding. What to do if/when the fund runs out.
So what do you think of publicly funded elections?
4 responses
@andy77e (5156)
• United States
27 Jun 10
This will do nothing. Perhaps in the short term, it may cause a few upsets, but I would wager this will drive more politicians into the hands of business.
Since the politicians will be unable to collect more money to campaign themselves, they'll have to rely on wealthy private organizations to push for the candidate.
1 person likes this
@spalladino (17891)
• United States
28 Jun 10
I agree with you on this one. Publicly funded election campaigns keep the playing field even...there will be less flooding of the airwaves by the candidate(s) with more money and lobbyists will be shut out of the process. It will be interesting to see how this turns out.
@TTCCWW (579)
• United States
26 Jun 10
We in Californoa already have the same type system but they don't raise enough money from it to support public campaign finance.
Three states already have Public Campaign Finance and it seems to be working well for them. This stops elected officials from being purchased by groups, companies and organizations. A true fix for the American Public.
1 person likes this
@snapdragons (91)
• United States
27 Jun 10
It sounds like a good idea to me and would even help to show which candidates are better money managers. If they only have a certain amount of campaign money they will have to use it responsibly and creatively if they want it to last.
1 person likes this
