economics of political speech

This week the FEC fined Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and Moveon.org for campaign violations related to the 2004 election.

This is the product of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law which is, in my mind, a totally unconstituional infringement of free specch rights.

McCain-Feingold sought to take money out of the political process by limiting dollars to candidates themselves. The net effect of the law is that thrid party groups got hold of the money and has turned the whole political process into a giant pissing contest; none of which adds anything to the political debate.

Before any meaningful campaign finance law can be instituted one needs to truly ask themselves the question "why is there so much money in politics".

The answer is "because there is so much money in government to get".

Think about it. On a daily basis, I receive at least five sales calls for a little two person accounting shop. Do you think Procter & Gamble receive more sales calls than I do on a daily basis? In addition, once a week I get a representative from a bank, payroll service, brokerage houses, etc. that drop off little gifts (coffee mugs, candy, publications, etc.) in the hopes that we'll refer potential clients to them.

How much money do you think is spent on meals & entertainment, gifts, junkets, etc. on decision makers at P&G as compared to me? My guess is that it's exponentially more.

Why would that be Gordon? Well..... maybe it's because P&G has a gizillion more discretionary dollars than my little old accounting practice.

Now take a an entity more than 3,000 times the size of P&G and guess what. People are going to spend money to buy influence on that entity... lot's of money.

I spent a weekend in DC a few years back, and I couldn't believe the number of pimps and whores (I don't know if I mean that literally or figuratively) that populate the DC suburbs. It's disgusting.

If you really want to take the money out of campaigns you need to take the money out of Washington, plain and simple. Really, how much do you think a congressman would be able to raise each year if he had absolutely no money to appropriate?