Liberals always say we need to get money out of politics. But there are three big problems with that: (1) the Supreme Court has made it near-impossible without amending the Constitution; (2) no matter what barriers you erect, money will always find ways to influence politics; and (3) maybe most importantly, politics costs money.
What’s truly remarkable about politics in the United States is how little politics there is. A healthy democracy would have political organizers living on every block, a thriving political media, think tanks on local, state and national levels coming up with new policy ideas and publicly funded political campaigns. We have none of that. All of it would cost money.
Yes, the presidential race next year may cost $5 billion. But rather than gasping at that, remember that the U.S. annual gross domestic product is $17 trillion, so $5 billion is about 0.03 percent of our economy. The U.S. is expected to spend $190 billion in 2016 on advertising alone, so $5 billion is only 2.6 percent of that — and there’s only a presidential race every four years, so a better comparison is to say the presidential election will cost perhaps 0.6 percent of total U.S. advertising in 2016-19.
So the problem isn’t that we’re spending too much on politics. Instead, it’s two problems: we’re spending way too little, and what money there is is coming from far too few people.
That’s why it’s good news to see “The Tea Party Case Against Mega-Donors” by John Pudner, in which Pudner advocates “giving average citizens a $200 tax credit for their small campaign contribution to the candidate of their choice.” Pudner is president of the Take Back Our Republic Action Fund, which tries “to advance campaign finance reform that empowers voters and encourages higher voter turnout aris[ing] from a conservative, market-based political philosophy.”
A longtime campaign consultant, Pudner was a top strategist for Rep. Dave Brat, who beat then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in the 2014 Republican primary. He also created the sophisticated basketball ratings and prediction website ValueAddBasketball.com, and according to Breitbart, “has advised general managers before the NBA Draft.”
Jay Cost, a Weekly Standard staff writer, endorsed Pudner’s idea as a possible “foundation of a privately directed system of public finance.” He concluded that “After more than a century of bad campaign finance laws, it is worth a shot.”
To understand the potential scale of this proposal, you have to multiply the number of adult American citizens (about 230 million) by $200, to get $46 billion. With that kind of money flowing into politics, it wouldn’t be necessary to try to keep out money from the Koch Brothers (or George Soros); it would simply be swamped by much larger amounts coming from regular people.
It’s not hard to see why genuine grassroots conservatives might find this concept appealing. It’s simple, straightforward and wouldn’t create a big bureaucracy, it’s clearly constitutional and it doesn’t require the government to make decisions about what constitutes acceptable political speech. Liberals would be wise to start exploring whether this is potential ground for a right-left alliance to drain the stinking swamp of U.S. politics.
(This post is from our blog: Unofficial Sources.)
Photo of John Boehner with David Brat and his wife (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
I’m intrigued by the idea behind the idea, but, as NLD pointed out above, tax credits do no good for 47% of taxpayers: most people pay most of their taxes through payroll taxes, and nearly half of us don’t have an outstanding tax liability for tax credits to defray. It unfortunately doesn’t help give a voice to any of the people it’s supposed to give a voice to.
Interesting idea, but this implementation won’t do it.
If I understand the Tea Party proposal, a “tax credit” for a “small campaign contribution” would be a typical Tea Party idea considering the 47% who don’t pay the federal income tax to be credited won’t be voting for them anyway. But, through other taxes, they will still be subsidizing the political contributions…
I give everyone ten bucks to go to the supermarket to buy soap powder. But there are only two kinds of soap powder. And they are both made by Unilever. And what most people don’t realise is that I am Unilever. And you are happy that I gave you $10 to buy soap powder. And we call it democracy. Laughable.
I give everyone 10 bucks to go to the supermarket to buy washing powder. You can only buy washing powder. But there’s only two kinds of washing powder, and they’re both made by Unilever. And you feel happy because I gave you $10 for washing powder. But what you didn’t realise is that I am Unilver. And we still call it democracy. Laughable.
A “conservative” wanting a government handout, irony
This sounds like a good idea, until you realize that half of Americans are too lazy to bother participating in elections. I wonder how many would bother looking up from the basketball game to bother?
In this group of “too lazy” people are those who are simply disgusted with the whole corrupt mess and refuse to participate in the dog and pony show. They are not lazy, they are realistic. They don’t have any expectation that how they vote will change our terrorist state foreign policy, criminal bank bailouts, support for the terrorist state of Israel etc. I am not one of them, but I support them against vote-shamers like yourself. I always lodge a protest vote… an affirmative choice with a negative message: “I’m not voting for your bullshit”, I’m voting for someone I believe in. Vote-shaming is silly when you see what people actually end up voting for in the name of a lesser evil. Refusing to vote is a stronger moral position than voting for Democrats or Republicans at the national level if you care about war crimes, or the financial pirates who have destroyed the poor and middle class.
Well, yes Mr. Schwarz, but according to the last Census Bureau stats, one out of every two Americans qualifies as poor, so perhaps there simply isn’t that much money to go around, and the last time I checked, inquality in America has now far exceeded that which existed during the Great Depression times!
Try Gilded Age levels of inequality.
I think something far more useful would be create a “bonus” option, instead of giving money to specific politician, voters could choose specific conditions to release the bonus, say raising the american median wage, lowering unemployment, lowering average cost of living or average medical spending or improving educational outcomes. Determining the incentives is more effective control than selecting the individuals.
Oregon already has this system, though the amount is $50. You should follow up by investigating the effect.
It’s a blessing for minor parties like the Greens, but it doesn’t actually “drain the swamp.” It might if there were also severe limits on the amounts campaigns could ACCEPT – not the amount that could be given.
This idea sounds good on paper. Unfortunately, I think far right conservatives would benefit the most from this. They’re more politically active and have larger numbers. Democrats win Presidential elections and pick up seats in lower offices in Presidential election years. They lose seats in the mid terms and hold a lot less smaller local and state government offices. And I don’t have any numbers, but I’m betting the Democratic voting bloc has lower income, some low enough that giving up $200 now to be promised it back later would be a big deal. Although I think small donations are a good thing, as is getting the populace involved in the political process, I think exposing who is behind big donations is also important. I feel like this tax credit plan would result in a bunch more Louie Gohmerts being elected.
“Unfortunately, I think far right conservatives would benefit the most from this. They’re more politically active and have larger numbers.”
I’m pretty sure it would help far right conservatives, but who it helped most would depend on who there are more of and who works the hardest.
“I’m betting the Democratic voting bloc has lower income, some low enough that giving up $200 now to be promised it back later would be a big deal.”
I agree, I don’t like it being attached to taxes, it would be much better if people could just tell the government to give $200 to whomever.
My thought exactly. It would also reduce (in theory) fraud.
I wonder, would the funds be available for candidates during primaries? If so, the advantage would surely go to the Dems.
The only benefit from this proposal is that it permits people to direct where the money is spent. But all that money still comes out of the government’s coffers (by reducing the tax revenues it receives). This is merely a backdoor way to provide federal funding for elections. Bad idea. Terrible idea, in fact. If people don’t care enough about a candidate to donate their own money to him their “contributions” mean nothing.
The problem isn’t that George Soros or the Koch brothers make large political contributions, it’s that the identity of the donors and the amounts of their donations is so difficult to determine. The solution is more transparency, better and faster disclosure. The actual amounts should be unrestricted.
This is a terrific idea. This would mean that third parties would finally have enough money to have their ideas heard. We might actually break the Inside-Washington Republican-Democrat stranglehold on US politics. Of course that is also the reason why this will never happen.
I’m kind of stunned that a Tea Partier would propose this – that is, assuming that the Tea Party is on the Republican side. Isn’t it a fact that the greater number of voters, the less likely a Republican is elected? Don’t the young (and less wealthy) skew Democrat?
In Canada, we’ve been going through the reverse experience, with a Conservative government. The major political parties used to receive a per-vote subsidy from taxpayer dollars, but Stephen Harper’s government ended that and now campaigns run on donations only. I guess the difference here between the two countries is that in Canada, Conservatives are much more successful at raising funds, while in the U.S., Democrats (Obama, H. Clinton) show that’s not necessarily the case (Koch brothers et al notwithstanding).
This kind of tinkering – getting a rebate to donate – is useless without a mass political party that represents the working class. We need to get the PEOPLE into politics, not the Small Money INTO present politics. Which will mostly find its way to the ruling parties, the two-headed hydra of American capitalism. This is why you guys should remain reporters and not ‘prescriptors.’ A joke.
Interesting idea, but it needs refinement. Out of the 260 mm adults only about 85 mm Americans owe any federal income taxes to claim the tax credit against. Furthermore, experience with small tax credits show that the take rate is well under 100%. Still, if 50 mm used it, that’s still 2x times the expected $5 b 2016 Pres race cost.
Right, it would have to be a refundable tax credit — ie, the kind where you get the money even if it exceeds your tax liability.
I also would prefer not to attach it to taxes at all, it should be very easy to set up the technology where people can just tell the government where to send their $200, rather than them sending the money then getting it back from the government.
They probably want the money stay in the federal government. Money out of the system is hard to track and can lead to funny business.
The idea is interesting, if politically a steep climb, but your
numbers are off. Out of the 260 mm U.S. adult population, only about 85 mm Americans face any positive federal income tax liability to claim the credit against. And as in the case of other modest tax credits, many would not bother. Still, if 50 million did, that’s still twice the current $5-$6 b 2016 projected election cost.
I’m shocked that The Intercept is giving credit for this idea to the Tea Party when it was actually first proposed by Lawrence Lessig as “democracy vouchers” years ago.. yall are usually on top of your shit…
That’s true, I should have clarified that the significance of this is that it’s the right proposing it. It’s been an idea on the left for at least 25 years.
it was actually first proposed by Lawrence Lessig — YES! And that is why it is an utterly untrustworthy idea!
Have you ever heard Lessig talk before the Century Club or one of the money meetings he has attended at the Federalist Society (an uber neocon outfit)?
Lessig is one of the prime poseurs, who sounds pure neocon or Wall Street whenever he goes before his own people (meaning the rich and the super-rich). Not to be trusted at all, another in the category of misinformation specialists like Niall Ferguson, Chalmers Johnson, Kevin Phillips, et al.
sgt_doom: Can I ask why you’ve included Chalmers Johnson as a misinformation specialist? I read Nemesis ( part of the Blowback trilogy ) and found the parallels he drew to the Roman empire to be pretty fascinating.
Because in both his books and various interviews Chalmers never names names, and all too frequently blames everything on the lowest level grunt, the American soldier, never the upper echelon or ruling types or money masters who sent the soldier to such and such a locale to perform their mission.
Johnson’s parallels were factual (although I prefer the social anthropologist, Joseph Tainter, and his socioeconomic parallels in a short sustainability/problem solving paper he wrote, used to be at http://www.dieoff.org), but typically misinformation specialists, such as Jeremy Rifkin, Kevin Phillips, et al., include fact with misdirection.
Can be confusing, and for years I was one of the confused, but if I figured out more from my stint in the military during Vietnam which supposedly took Chalmers a lifetime to figure out, and him being from the patrician class, then he must have been the most simpleton fellow in existence, or a misinformation specialist.
I did not read Johnson’s first two books, so I am definitely unacquainted with the material. I don’t have your experience and definitely have not been through the draft/conscription process. Vietnam was a different war in that respect than the ones we wage today, bridging the gap between current modern warfare and the conflicts of old. When you take the draft out of the equation, how do you feel about the phrase “no war without warriors”? I find that there is a certain section of my generation that is all too eager to be at the forefront of killing brown people. In these cases, are we the people more responsible for putting the “government we deserve” in place, or are we the victims or manipulation, propaganda, and relative powerlessness compared to corporations and the wealthy? I think about these things a lot, and never really come to a satisfactory answer.
This brings up some very interesting topics. Have you read Gustav Haverford’s “The Short Timers” and “The Phantom Blooper”? These books changed my outlook quite a bit in regards to wars, how we fight them, and the cost that is paid by all of those involved so that the few can profit or influence.
Quite a few people would probably call this a radical idea, but I’ve always been of the opinion that first and foremost, it should be the families of the people who decide that we go to war who should be put at the forefront of those wars. It is a cost that should be paid, as lives that are valuable to one’s self are at stake. With no skin in the game, it is much easier to send off others to do one’s dirty work. Perhaps an alternative to this would be something out of Heinlein’s “Starship Troopers”. A tiered system of citizenship: the ability to hold public office could only be held after serving, being gravely aware of the cost of conflict and sending another being to possible death. It’s not democracy the way our forefather’s envisioned, but the current system is to corrupt to continue.
I think Frank Herbert said it best.
“All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted.”
New York Times, that printed toilet paper company, collected money from the Clintons to endorse the elder female family member as president. It’s an idea that T//I can explore.
So more money for people with accountants? Sweet.
It seems to me that an individual that cares can do a lot more than $200 damage simply by reading/researching/posting on the internet and spamming their friends and family. Maybe it would make more sense that interent access be paid for by the government, instead of giving political parties and major media even more money. They really do get enough already.
Why would I give candidates $200 to tell me what I should believe, when I can cut out the middle man, pocket the $200 as free internet, and tell the candidates myself what they should believe?
This is not a bad argument. However, the reality of democratic politics is that there are a lot of people who never think about politics, never read the Internet, scarcely read a paper … but their votes are as good as anyone else’s. If you’ve ever participated in a “GOTV” (‘get out the vote’) drive right before an election, you know what I mean. For Republicans it might be different, but I know for Democrats you go into some pretty sketchy poor neighborhoods where there’s not exactly a lot of money left over for broadband.
Still, it does feel back-asswards to earmark money to pay the big media outlets with the government licenses that let them control our radio spectrum to maybe let our candidates in for an hour. The media that have broadcast licenses that I don’t, cable franchises that I don’t, any kind of special paper from the government that sets them up as better than me – they should be made to hand over some space to the candidates for free. They’re still making an indecent profit on monopoly status anyway.
Sounds plausible on the “surface” but if you’re trying to “drain the stinking swamp” by adding more water, aren’t we just diluting the stench, and still left with the swamp? Metaphors aside, any experiment carries the risk of unintended consequences, so before we increase the amount of money being dumped into the mix, let’s think these things through. Of course, draining the swamp isn’t always the best overall strategy either.
This idea was proposed by Lawrence Lessig in his 2011 book, “Republic Lost”. You can read a free pdf here: http://lesterland.lessig.org/pdf/republic-lost.pdf .
There are several voucher proposals making their way through the House. They’re listed on http://www.repswith.us/reforms . MAYDAY PAC, a non-partisan organization founded by Lessig, is working to get Congress to come together on any one of these bills. You can add your voice here: https://mayday.us/call/
The elegance of this idea is that it amounts to public financing of elections brought about through a tax credit. In other words, in a very general sense, an outcome favored by liberals using a mechanism favored by conservatives. (It’s a little like the idea of nominal GDP-targeting by the Fed, for any other econo-nerds out there)
It’s certainly one of the more creative ideas to have emerged…
I agree wholeheartedly with this idea. I should add that very similar measures could lead to the funding of arts organizations that can replace the failing copyright system to fund creative endeavors. An unpleasant, but necessary consequence though of such measures is that they require a tax increase to offset the credits being given out. Still, in the case of copyright I think we could come out far, far ahead by getting rid of all the legal posturing and allowing everyone access to everything in existence, for the mere cost of what the IP sector takes in now, minus the cost of the middlemen.
“I should add that very similar measures could lead to the funding of arts organizations that can replace the failing copyright system to fund creative endeavors.”
I totally agree with that, you’ve probably seen Dean Baker’s proposal:
http://www.cepr.net/publications/reports/the-artistic-freedom-voucher-internet-age-alternative-to-copyrights
“An unpleasant, but necessary consequence though of such measures is that they require a tax increase to offset the credits being given out.”
Maybe in the current ideological environment, but I don’t think we should just concede that. It wouldn’t be a big deal if we just kept taxes the same and borrowed the money.
@Jon Schwarz: Thanks! I’ve been preaching this idea for a long time and never heard of Dean Baker’s proposal. My idea differs from it on some minor details:
1) I think that the total “artistic freedom voucher” per artist needs to be very low.
1a) One reason is simply that if I voucher you $100 and you voucher me $100, we’ve cheated the system – and for $200, it may be worth cheating.
1b) The other is that we need to look at the overall histogram of the number of artists and payment per artist we are trying to encourage. Before the advent of “canned music”, as the early 1900s controversy called it, there were musicians in practically any major meeting place. Gradually, as per the allegory of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, these people were replaced by jukeboxes, and musicians were divided into a handful of fabulously wealthy winners and a huge number of losers. If we set a $100 maximum voucher, we are accepting that status quo, duplicating what happens when consumers go out and buy lots of records by one band but never hear of another. But if we lower that figure, then we require consumers to spread the wealth more evenly, so there are more winners, fewer losers. Setting the precise value becomes a matter of economic calculation.
2) To reduce the level of cheating and make it feasible for one harried taxpayer to fund thousands of musicians, movie-makers, artists etc., we should generally encourage them to fund organizations rather than individuals. An “organization” for this purpose generates a list of AFV recipients, each receiving an equal amount up to the low statutory maximum, and (optionally) may be trusted with dispensing the money to them.
2a) The taxpayer doesn’t have to literally join the organization or reveal personal data to it; his required role is only to choose the organization as one recipient on a tax form (and he can list however many he wishes). Of course, he can and probably should be more involved, but a lot of people think that somebody else knows better than they do what art is.
2b) The artist doesn’t need to register with the government, only with the organization that generates the list of recipients. The organization of course can be audited, but this does not require a breach of the pseudonymity of artists if they aren’t found to be involved in wrongdoing. But pseudonymous artists receiving anything near the maximum amount per donor have to be required to disclose if they are doubly listed so that they don’t get more than the maximum.
In the case of politics, this all works much the same way, only for ‘organizations’ substitute ‘parties’. Again, if people circulate a nominating petition in a small room and each check off $200 to the next, that could be a problem. So again, there’s a need to have people split up that money to multiple recipients, which creates a practical desire to have someone else propose and manage lists. Of course, since we want there to be just a few winning politicians, the statutory limit for the amount designated for one recipient can be substantially higher – not $200, but $20 or even $40 might be safe. And the voters will much more often want to write down those names themselves, often using the parties just to distribute whatever (if anything) is left over after they’ve named the people they can think of. But I think the overall mechanics should be similar.
The main problem with campaign finance is not the money per se, but rather that candidates must spend all their time and effort raising money. There is no time left over to study public policy, debate or draft legislation – this must all be done by the campaign donors themselves.
If you double or triple the amount of campaign money, the time required to raise and spend it increases proportionately. So it would be necessary to increase the length of a Presidential campaign to approximately four years. The new campaign could be scheduled to start one week following the inauguration address. But this might be counterproductive.
So why not simply auction off all federal political offices once every four years? The need for a candidate to campaign full time would be eliminated. The money raised at the auction could be used to lower the federal deficit. In fact, why wait every four years? There are a lot of people who would like to be President. So why not hold a Presidential Auction every year?
Can we please have +1 buttons or something, this man really deserves it, for this post alone.
No, no, no — not auction — a lottery and random selection would be far superior to the present oligarchic system!
This wouldn’t work for a variety of reasons. The first of which is that, if we accept that concentrated and coordinated spending influences votes, why would we not accept that concentrated and coordinated spending influences donations? If $5 million from XYZ interest group can influence the votes of 5 million Americans, could it not also influence the direction of giving of the disparate $200 “allowances” of the same 5 million Americans?
A block of tightly coordinated money is a force multiplier; it’s naive to think that it can be “swamped” by a bunch of $200 pittances, even if their aggregate value is several times greater than the block.
“if we accept that concentrated and coordinated spending influences votes, why would we not accept that concentrated and coordinated spending influences donations?”
Sure, that’s possible, that’s what John Adams thought:
http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/003038.html
But if that’s true, then political change is essentially impossible and there’s no point in talking about any of this. A lot of history suggests that that’s true, but not all history, especially since the world has been getting v. v. v. slowly more democratic for the past 100 years.
Also, if that’s true than the 0.0001% would have no problem with a proposal like this. But they most definitely would. And I suggest we should take seriously their own evaluation of their interests.
I’m primarily interested in pragmatic solutions for practical problems, not sludging through a cacophony of vague 18th century quotes painstakingly tied through tenuous assumptions and half-hearted connections, to a very routine policy proposal.
Meaningful and intelligent policy analysis doesn’t generally invoke John Adams, Plato, or Obi Wan Kenobi in response to the very first question posed. When it finds that it has to, that’s usually a good sign of a very serious flaw in the proposal.
“But if that’s true, then political change is essentially impossible”
I posed a very realistic, nuts and bolts problem with this issue and you’ve just thrown your hands up in the arm and yelled “OMG, then it’s impossible! Love it or leave it!”
I don’t buy your assertion that this is the only proposal that will work and, if it doesn’t, then all hope is lost because there’s no other proposal that will work, and we should all move to Nauru and collect bat guano. To say that your response to the identification of a very serious flaw (and I’m not sure why you should defend it; are you reporting or advocating?) is insanely dramatic is an understatement.
Well, what is it that you’re actually saying? It seems to me that you’re saying that blocks of tightly coordinated money can persuade people to do essentially what they want politically, even against people’s own interest. And if that’s true, then any reform proposal is largely pointless.
@Jon Schwarz
I am a firm believer that the only people fooled by advertising are those that buy it.
Think about it. If I could hypnotize the world, it makes much more sense that instead of hypnotizing everyone, that I just hypnotize the people paying me to hypnotize the world into thinking that I hypnotized everyone but them. It is a hell of a lot less work for exactly the same money.
Why do the people spending the big bucks not realize this obvious truth? Obviously, because they are hypnotized. Or it could just be because they are really really really greedy. But I am being repetitive.
I guess it is possible that money makes you immune to hypnotism. That could also make sense.
So here is the thing–if money doesn’t influence, then let the rich be flimflammed, it’s called redistribution. Why would you want to stand in the way of that?
But if money can buy persuasion, then max’s point stands. Your idea does nothing but reinforce the same power structures that you insist you are fighting.
So no matter what the reality, this is not a very good idea. In fact, this just seems like desperate life support for obsolete political parties wheezing their last breaths.
You are going to need more than a hypnotist to animate these rotting corpses.
better idea: tax large political donations (e.g. 50% of anything over $10,000). Use money from this tax to fund a voucher program.
This is an elegant solution that allows unlimited donations without drowning out the general populace.
Not sure I agree with taxing donations, that might have constitutional ramifications (or it might not, I don’t understand this well enough to know). And even if there were no constitutional problems, there aren’t anywhere near enough big political donations to pay for tons of smaller ones — which you want to be the case. If there *were* enough big political donations to cover the cost of tons of smaller ones, it would mean the big donors still had way too much influence.
Good article! Instead of throwing more money at the problem, why not look at how states have integrated to two major parties into government? We basically have state parties in the U.S.. We also need to look at ballot access laws and how single member districts and winner-take-all at large elections exclude too many voices.
Thanks for this — I definitely agree that ballot access laws, single member districts, winner-take-all at-large elections are real problems. That said, I think this is a case where throwing money at the problem would have a big positive effect, the most important of which would simply be to politicize lots of people — if there were much more money in politics, many more people would be able to spend more time involved in politics. Right now almost no one spends any time on it at all, leaving it all to 17 billionaires.
> Instead of
How about “in addition to”? The proposed voucher money could fund more than just campaigns, as proposed, but also fund all the other machinery of politics, such as parties, think tanks, initiatives, etc.
I completely agree we should also change voting rules. These two areas of effort are not in conflict.
“The proposed voucher money could fund more than just campaigns, as proposed, but also fund all the other machinery of politics, such as parties, think tanks, initiatives, etc.”
I definitely think that’s the way to go, it would make a much bigger difference than just funding elections.