Campaign Finance

Thoughts on how to deal with the issues and special interest money expectations re campaign financing.
James E. White
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Campaign Finance

Unread post by James E. White »

The simple solution to the fantastic growth of big money spending on political campaigns is for you, you, you, and you to simply quit paying any attention at all to the campaign ads, both positive and negative. The vast majority of them are simplistic lies with only maybe the merest thread of fact to (sort of) anchor them. First they characterize something, often something you won't be able to figure out exactly what it is, either all bad or all good and you have to simply take their word for it. You can't pack much meaningful into a 60 second commercial. Then they often somehow extrapolate into the future and boldly state that it will end all good or all bad depending on whether they are building up their side or tearing down the other. Yogi Berra maybe said: "It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future" or at least that's one (paraphrase?) of his often quoted paraphrase of a much earlier (and often misattributed) Danish proverb.

I can, however, reliably predict that taxes will rise in the USA no matter what anyone says or promises to the contrary simply because they will have to to get the national debt under control. Whether Representatives, Senators, or the President will acknowledge such necessity or do something about it depends very much on how they read your, your, your, and your willingness to hear and accept the need. Your great benefit from "free" government services may seem nice but eventually there must be a reckoning. Think for a minute and you'll understand that the very people that percentage- and affordability-wise could pay more in taxes are the very ones plowing the mostest into campaign coffers and campaign ads to convince you to vote for parties and people that will not up their taxes, your taxes are irrelevant to those rich parties.

Yes, it used to be that there were some limits on campaign contributions and advertising but the Supreme Court, under the correct guidance of the First Amendment to the Constitution lifted those. But just because someone advertises (at a very loud volume) a bunch of half (or more likely 10-20% or less) truths it doesn't mean you have to turn off your thinking brain and accept them at the face value of whatever your current predilections are. You, after all, are "the People" and the government bows to you, not the other way around. Sorry, but accepting your "the People" responsibility takes effort and thinking so please, please, make the effort to do it for both your and my benefit.

Unfortunately your ignoring the big campaign advertising blitz will substantially (when the donators of the money get wise to your ignoring them) reduce the advertising revenues that your local, and even national, papers and other news media depend on to stay alive. That means that one of the things you can do to help is to subscribe to at least some local and national media – preferably electronically though old-fashioned paper will do too. And I strongly urge you to "cross-pollinate" your subscriptions, or at least the media you pay attention to, to ones with various points of view. Not all "news" media are honest unbiased reporters of actual news. Yelling "Horse race, Jones is closing in…" is, after all, good clickbait.

Spread your news media attention around so that it will discourage news commentators, authors, reporters, journalists, whatever and their publishers from pandering to biased groups from whence they can glean the biggest (targeted) advertising revenue stream. "Journalists" who are seeking large "salaries" aren't actually "earning" those salaries for honest, high integrity, news reporting; they are receiving those payments to keep delivering the advertising dollars. Hence they make a hot controversy of most everything. In selecting news media, research who the actual owner is. Getting multiple streams from a single owner generally simply works to the owner's advantage, not yours. If the owner has found a formula that generates the profits they will use that formula as a core, directing, with minimal extra expense, the same biased "news" to all of their media.
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