Professor Don Boudreaux of Cafe Hayek, sent the following letter to the Baltimore Sun.
He's spot on as usual.
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25 October 2012
Editor, Baltimore Sun
Dear Editor:
Upset with private people's freedom to spend on political campaigns, Jack Kinstlinger's premise is that money spent by citizens to influence the actions of politicians is a “pervasive and corrupting influence,” and that this corruption is greater the more is the money that citizens spend on these pursuits (Letters, Oct. 25).
Let’s grant the premise.
Is it not then also true that money spent by politicians to influence (and, in many cases, to dictate) the actions of citizens is a corrupting influence, and that this corruption is greater the more is the money that politicians spend on these pursuits?
Indeed, if money in politics is corrupting, and if this corruption is greater the greater is the amount of money in politics, then surely we should worry far more about the amount of money spent BY politicians than about the amount spent ON politicians. The $6 billion that will be spent on this year’s presidential and congressional campaigns* – that is, the amount spent in 2012 ON politicians – is a vanishingly small 0.16 percent of the $3.7 trillion that will be spent in 2012 BY politicians.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030
There are two issues here according to this letter to the Editor:
1. “money spent BY politicians” and
2. money “spent ON politicians”.
Someone, anyone, PLEASE tell me how obvious it is to deal with these two issues, i.e. when individuals, firms, organizations, etc give money to politicians and how politicians spent this money?
Thank you very much (BTW, I think the UK has it right in regulating donations to politicians).
Press reports suggest they’ve each raised $1.2 billion. So it’s no big deal.
If we agree to regulate political donations, shouldn’t we also regulate government spending?