Here we go again: The US Supreme Court has relaxed some political contribution limits. Cue the hype.
Last year, 2013, was the first year of the 2014 campaign cycle.
Question #1: How much did federal elected officials spend on their 2014 campaigns last year?
Answer: At least $3.45 trillion — a little over $6.4 billion for each US Senator and US Representative and for the two elected executive branch officials, the president and vice-president.
Yes, I’m talking about the federal government’s entire budget.
Every dollar the US government spends serves one or both of two functions: Buying future support or rewarding past support for the politicians who spend it.
That’s not to say that government spending doesn’t ever serve other functions … but it ALWAYS serves those two whether it’s buying farm votes and urban working class votes with food stamps, factory worker votes with “defense” contracts, teachers’ union votes with education spending, “tough on crime” votes with mass incarceration, etc.
Question #2: When was the last time a challenger for federal office raised and spent $6.4 billion in voluntary, individual campaign contributions in a single campaign year? Or two (for a congressional election), four (for a presidential or vice-presidential campaign) or six (for a US Senate campaign)?
Answer: Never. Not even close.
Every elected federal incumbent gets a multi-billion-dollar head start on any potential challenger — before the free media advantage, before internal party support against primary challengers, before even beginning to ask for campaign contributions. Is it any wonder that in the last 20 years the re-election rate in the US House of Representatives has never dipped below 80% and that it has only done so twice in the US Senate?
The last time that re-election rate dipped below 80% in the US Senate, Senators for Life (if they wished it) John McCain and Joe Lieberman threw a temper tantrum for “campaign finance reform” to “get the big money out of elections.” Not THEIR “big money,” but the much smaller “big money” that threatened their sinecures (when Lieberman later lost a Democratic primary and formed his own shell party to get re-elected, it was telling that that party was called “Connecticut for Lieberman” rather than the reverse; Connecticut, in Lieberman’s view, clearly existed for the sole purpose of providing him with a Senate seat).
The only way to “get big money out of elections” is to stop HAVING elections — an idea which, as an anarchist, I strongly support. But that doesn’t seem like something that’s going to happen any time soon, so I’ll settle for an end to the Chicken Little hype-fest that erupts every time a court declines to stop a few more drops of rain from falling in the veritable ocean of “campaign finance.”
If there are going to be “campaign finance” caps, those caps should be on total receipts, not on individual contributions. And the ceiling should be no lower for challengers than for incumbents — including the trillions the incumbents spend off the “campaign” books.
Citations to this article:
- Thomas L. Knapp, Campaign Finance Reform is Small Change, Newberry, South Carolina Observer, 04/12/14
- Thomas L. Knapp, Campaign Finance Reform is Small Change, Easley, South Carolina Progress, 04/10/14
- Thomas L. Knapp, Campaign Finance Reform is Small Change, Epoch Times, 04/08/14
- Thomas L. Knapp, Campaign Finance Reform is Small Change, Before It’s News, 04/08/14
It never ceases to amaze me how many unique, yet totally logical, insights are premiered on this website. Great article!
Although, I will say that the statement "every dollar the US government spends serves one or both of two functions: Buying future support or rewarding past support for the politicians who spend it," may be slightly overstated. Are you suggesting that every dollar is spent with the explicit intention to win votes (even if it's only a secondary or tertiary intention) or that every vote allocates resources or power to some people over others, thereby gaining votes regardless of the politicians intention?
If you meant the former then, off the top of my head, it seems that things like special perks for the politicians themselves (housing, healthcare, bodyguards, etc) aren't necessarily passed with the intention of gaining votes. in mind at all. I mean, one might argue that they're trying to win the votes of real estate developers, insurance company employees, and personal defense contractors, but I don't see any good reason to assume that.
Similarly, it may be unlikely, but it is not logically impossible that some bills are passed for purely ideological reasons. Was the 14th Amendment simply a ploy to gain the votes of the newly freed slaves or was there actually something ideological at stake for the politicians? Again, I don't think that most bills are passed this way, but, it's sometimes hard to tell.
Not that this would weaken your argument in a very considerable way. I suspect that non-vote-grabbing bills are a tiny fraction of the budget. But I wouldn't want this noble movement to be so hasty it starts making generalizations (isn't that what happened with the "vulgar" libertarians and their praise of big business before investigating how they got to be so big?). Since we don't know with absolute certainty what lies in the hearts of all legislators everywhere, I think it would be wise to excersize a little more restraint in our language.
If, however, you only meant that every act of government has the effect of gaining some votes somewhere, regardless of the intention of the politicians, then I'm not sure that insight is particularly helpful. It could be that a bill making Christianity the official state religion would gain some votes, but it would probably cost the politicians who supported it more votes than they gained, which doesn't explain the reelection statistics. It seems to me you can only explain reelection statistics in terms of handouts to voters if the incumbents are systematically using the public coffer to win votes (which brings us back to my first criticism).
But again, loved the article!
The Amazon is usually considered to be most powerful river in the world. However, the flow of money through Washington is much more powerful than the Amazon.
On top of that, the influence available is at least as valuable as the direct funding. The possibilities for rent seeking and suppressing competition are endless.
Get money out of politics? Ha!