|
It seems that the biggest problem in elections in the United States today is money. Perhaps how much money is spent is not the real problem. Rather, whose money is spent is the problem. "One man, one vote" is great as a concept. However, in practice money buys you access. In fact, money also buys votes. Having spent the most money is by far the leading factor in winning elections. There seems to be two possible courses of action to try to stop the people who have the money from owning government. The first is to keep them from giving it to the people who make the laws. Go ahead and try. The people who have the money and hence the ear of government aren't likely to help you. The polititions who are getting the money aren't likely to be against that system, either. What about the media, the big winner in the money in politics game, perhaps they will take up the cause. Even if they did, you get into a whole plethera of free speech issues when you tell someone they can't spend their personal time and / or money to "say" something they believe in. Is there no way out of this quagmire? I believe there is. It seems to me that the simple answer is to put some of the money back in the hands of the electorate. You could easily do this by giving a tax credit to any citizen who donates a certain amount of money to any political party, candidate or cause. The credit would not have to be huge, $100 to $200 is probably sufficient. For the most part the system would cruise along as normal. The worst case scenerio is that the general public would have a real voice in politics. The more likely effect is that for the most part things wouldn't change much, except for one thing: the pols would always have in the backs of their minds that they had better keep the interest of the voter in their sights. Any malfeasance would, if it raised the voters' ire, be far more likely to be an issue in the next election. I would propose that the credit should be a dollar for dollar credit. It should be spendable through April 15 and still be able to be taken on the previous year's taxes. In this way a citizen would, with electronic tax filing and direct deposit, be able to exercise this influence with the out-of-pocket expense being limited to ten days to two weeks. It should be available to anyone who gives money to any qualified candidate or political party / cause. Qualifying to receive the money should be reasonably easy, i.e. not only available to the two major parties. I believe that this would be a good first step in leveling the playing field in politics. It is not a silver bullet, but merely a good step towards making more people not only have more clout but perhaps more important, feel like they have more of a political voice. The feeling of having more power would keep more people engaged. Talk about your win-win situation. |