Posted on 09/08/2006 11:20:46 AM PDT by unionblue83
This is the time of year when we hear a lot about election reform. You know the mantra: special interests, too much money in politics, negative ads, public financing, etc. The problem with election reform is the same one inherent in most tax reform; namely, every time either system gets reformed, it gets worse. Each “simplification” of the tax code creates a few hundred more indecipherable pages of regulations, and each move to “clean up” politics makes our system more unwieldy and unresponsive.
The whole move to limit campaign contributions has had at least three unintended consequences (unintended, but predictable). First, it’s made money-raising the full time job of most of our politicians. A member of the U.S. House of Representatives, for example, must run every two years, and, with the smaller donation limit, he must never stop trolling for cash. Second, it’s more difficult than ever to unseat an incumbent. What with built-in name recognition and a challenger’s daunting task of raising money in small increments, it’s no wonder most reform legislation is referred to by cynical insiders as “Incumbent Protection Act.” And that leads to the third consequence of the latest wave of reforms, and that’s the rise of the rich guys in politics. Since there’s no limit to spending your own money, we’re rapidly approaching the point where only the wealthy have a realistic shot at unseating an incumbent.
(Excerpt) Read more at humanevents.com ...
ping.
As Winston Churchill put it in so many words: "democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others."
He does come up with some interesting ideas from time to time.
Bookmarked.
The first step in election reform should be verifying the identity of the voter, confirming the eligibility, and ensuring that ONLY voters who confirm their identity and actually appear IN PERSON at the polling place are able to vote. Everything else can follow.
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