THE NEW YORK SPECTATOR: Parasite Politics
Sager, R .H .
THE NEW YOiiSPECTATOR R.H. SAGER Parasite Politics Campaign Reform Act of 2002 hasn't been tossed out by the Supreme Court, yet. But already the good government dogoodniks are claiming that...
...About $40 million went to Democrats, and about $2 million went to Republicans...
...And, as was proven in 2001, there was nothing the system could do about a billionaire media mogul ready to spend more than $70 million of his own money to become mayor...
...Asked to defend the board's expenditure of millions of taxpayers' dollars on incumbents already likely to be re-elected, Gordon told the Sun "we're not about outcomes...
...When the "voluntary contributions" are no longer enough, have no doubt that they will become simply "contributions," right out of the public treasury...
...First, there's the consent problem...
...There's also a competition problem...
...others are indifferent...
...Let's raise the check-off to $5 for single filers and $10 for joint filers from $3 for everyone, the task force, which includes McCain adviser Richard Davis, proposed...
...No one should think for a second that the federal government won't end up following this model if the stakes are raised...
...This is a reasonable point, but it doesn't answer the objection that for all the board's spending, the public interest is poorly served...
...Why give tens of thousands of dollars to incumbents facing virtually non-existent competition...
...Despite the taxpayers' generosity, however, only about 12 percent of eligible voters in New York City even bothered to come out to the polls for the primaries...
...But already the good government dogoodniks are claiming that further tinkering with the campaign-finance system is necessary...
...Some people are naïve enough to believe that public campaign funding can bring us clean elections...
...Political consultants everywhere are giddy...
...Then, there's the kook problem...
...It's enough to make a guy want to drop some nice soft money into the back pocket of the next politician who saunters down the street...
...NOVEMBER 2003 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 47...
...Many New Yorkers don't know it, but they're paying the re-election expenses this November of Brooklyn's crackpot councilman, Charles Barron, who said at a slavery reparations rally last summer in Washington, D.C., "I want to go up to the closest white person...and then slap him, just for my mental health...
...The one-to-one match the federal government currently gives to candidates for the first $250 of every donation—financed by that delightful little box about 12 percent of Americans check off on their tax returns—isn't enough, a task force of the Campaign Finance Institute argued in a report in September...
...That interest groups and voting blocs are more important than campaign contributions is a truism about the politics of any state considering public funding of campaigns, as well as for the national government...
...Historian Fred Siegel recently told the New York Sun that public funding "has turned into a welfare system for politicians," and most pro-financing people tend to agree...
...It's just kind of a given that you have to make a stronger case if you're trying to knock someone out and replace them...
...No sitting council member was unseated, nor are any likely to meet their electoral maker in November's general election...
...They want, for instance, to up the amount of public financing given to candidates for federal office...
...New York City—despite its citizens' protestations to the contrary—is not so special...
...The sums are so small in terms of the city's overall budget, in most people's view, that it's hardly worth arguing about...
...Nicole Gordon, executive director of the Campaign Finance Board, downplayed the high re-election rates of incumbents: "They please their constituents...
...New York City has afive-to-one Democratic registration advantage, but even this doesn't fully account for such a breakdown...
...Maine and Arizona already have similar systems to New York's, with similar problems...
...And public financing is a good way of further entrenching those interests...
...The voluntary system is, after all, voluntary...
...This would provide for a three-to-one match for the first $10.0 of every donation...
...While it's likely most of them don't remember taking out their wallets when Barron came calling, a check was cut to his campaign on their behalf ahead of September's primary, by the New York City Campaign Finance Board, in the amount of $56,184...
...The money consistently skews to the Democrats (in part, because many Republicans have a libertarian streak that prevents them from accepting coerced contributions), incumbents keep getting re-elected, and the calls for ever more money and tampering with the election system never cease...
...Lastly, there's the lopsidedness problem...
...New Yorkers also have opened up their hearts and bank accounts involuntarily to 42 other candidates for their City HE PATENTLY UNCONSTITUTIONAL Bipartisan 1 Some people are naive enough to believe that public campaign funding can bring us clean elections...
...The taxpayers go on subsidizing the politicians, all the while wondering just why the system feels so corrupt...
...8", RH...
...Taxpayer dollars are like crack cocaine, and politicians need bigger and bigger doses to get their fix...
...Outside of flukes like Mayor Bloomberg, Siegel argues that the dollar simply has never been almighty in New York City, a place where unions and other factions have far more clout...
...Fewer than half the members of the 51-member City Council had challengers in this year's primaries, and only a few of those were more than token candidates...
...Still, almost no one in New York City stops to consider whether this is a wise expenditure of money...
...About $40 million went to Democrats, and about $2 million went to Republicans...
...The system is expensive, and the politicians will be damned if they're going to live at the whim of the fickle public...
...But before these folks jump on the bandwagon, they might want to take a look at the most generous public campaign fundingsystem in America: New York City There could hardly be a finer test case to demonstrate the multi-headed folly that is public financing of politicians...
...Mayor Bloomberg even proposes reforming our elections by making them non-partisan—eliminating the primaries and replacing them with an open first-round election—without addressing the question of why the Last Big Thing didn't do the trick...
...46 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR NOVEMBER 2003 H. SAGER Council so far this year, most of whom they've never heard of, giving away a total of almost $3 million...
...In 2001, when there was a full slate of citywide races, including the race for mayor, New Yorkers shelled out $42 million for this system...
...It's just the slow 12 percent of the population being taken for a ride...
...At the federal level, this might be called the Kucinich problem...
...New Yorkers shelled out $42 million for this system...
...Congress at least still sees single-digit turnover, as opposed to nil...
...Sager is editorial features editor of the New York Sun...
...New York City's system is voluntary for candidates, but not so for taxpayers...
...The incumbents in office, their term is virtually guaranteed if they're cooperating with the city's entrenched interests," he said...
Vol. 36 • November 2003 • No. 6
