The public financing system for the presidential campaign is nearly dead. According to USA Today, less than 8 percent of 2006 tax returns filed from Jan. 1 to April 14 designated a $3 contribution to the public campaign-financing system. USA Today calls it "the latest sign that taxpayer support to help pay for presidential campaigns is waning." The other signs of the coming demise of the system: Six presidential candidates have already said they are likely to decline public money for their 2008 campaigns, and a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll shows 46 percent of people would like to see campaigns financed solely with private money.
Liberals don't like the trend. An article from the very-politically liberal magazine The Nation says this:
The modern campaign finance system is badly broken, if not on the verge of total collapse. The 2008 cycle promises to be the most expensive in history, as the fundraising numbers in the first quarter of this year demonstrated. One presidential contender after another is declining matching funds and raising as much money as possible. Michael Toner, former head of the Federal Election Commission, predicts that the two major party nominees will raise $500 million apiece. John McCain has abandoned the cause of reform he once so loudly trumpeted; Barack Obama refers to the amount of money he's raising as "obscene."
But these disturbing developments, rather than discouraging reformers, have only strengthened their resolve. The answer to the current problem is more, not less, public funding, they say. That's why Illinois's senior Senator, Dick Durbin - the number-two Democrat in the Senate - has introduced the first bipartisan bill to publicly finance federal races, modeled after successful "clean election" laws at the state and local levels. Durbin's bill won't stop the presidential money chase. But it would transform the way Congressional races are fought and won, laying down the most significant campaign finance reforms to date. Obama has signed on as a co-sponsor, calling the bill "a very intelligent approach."
Durbin, Obama and the rest of the "reformers" don't get it. The public doesn't want public financing of federal campaigns. But that seems to be the liberal way of policy-making: If the people reject it, or if it fails to work, give them more of it.
Gun control doesn't work, we need more gun control! The public doesn't want tax dollars funding presidential campaigns, well, by golly, let's force them to fund presidential campaigns - and congressional races too!
The truth is, while the public doesn't want "public financing" of the presidential campaigns, the same public is more than willing to finance presidential campaigns privately, and voluntarily, with their donations going to the candidate of their choice. Under our current system, the people get to select the candidates they want to back financially, and to do so voluntarily. And for a number of years they've also had the option of checking that box on their IRS form each year to designate a dollar to the public-financing system. Oops. It used to be a dollar. Then they had to raise it to $2, and now it's $3.
But the people have spoken loud and clear: They don't want to pay for public-financing of the presidential campaigns. They do want to be able to voluntarily fund the candidates of their choice. Why does that so infuriate liberals?
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