Let’s say we set up an independent commission charged with collecting and distributing moneys (exactly as the givers intend) that people want to give to various political parties and candidates. The money is turned over to the recipients, 100% of it, no fees, no nothing, but totally anonymously. (The commission is funded by the federal government, but the cost would be fairly small-- five good accountants with laptops could run it–so no fair claiming that this is a government boondoggle, etc.)
We criminalize any moneys being given to parties or candidates other than through this commission. Any receipts for the moneys, or any other documentation issued by the commission, may not contain the name of the recipient.
It seems to me that this would sharply discourage any quid pro quo in campaign contributions. People would be able to contribute to their chosen parties and candidates, just as they can now, with the only difference being that no one could credibly claim any credit for donating.
The commission idea is more likely to make the contributions anonymous to the public than to the recipients, this seems to be opposite of your idea’s intention.
Making outside contributions illegal, great idea. Now how you enforce it?
Another problem is that you would still be allowed to give money to candidates and campaign workers as private persons (you can hardly outlaw that), and of course they are perfectly allowed to use their own private assets to fund their campaign.
I’m not following why the commission’s full records would have to be public. The only thing I’m stipulating must be kept private is the names of the recepients.
The IRS keeps plenty of stuff sealed, on pain of imprisonment, routinely. Why can’t this commission state that “Mr. Moto has contributed $150,000 to certain candidates or parties on December 22, 2004” but be prohibited from revealing the names of the candidatesor parties? That way when you go to the Liberal Party and tell them that you want more welfare giveaways to drug addicts, and you’re a big contributor to their party, they can say to you, “We don’t know WHO you gave that money to, so it would be foolish for us to do what you’re asking. We’ll just do what we think is in our interests.” They’d still have the money, and you cold still advocate for more welfare givewayas–there just would be no quid pro quo.
But more to your point–how would this commission’s corruption problems differ from those of the IRS which tracks multiple sensitive documents that they’re required to keep completely private?
No, no, no. I’m talking about making ANY contribution that is not funneled through the commission illegal, just the way that now you can be prosecuted for bribing a public official. “You have money to contribute to Candidate X? Give it to us, we’ll give it to him, and keep your name out of it. Anything else is a stiff jail sentence if you get caught.”
Unless both the recipient side and the donor side are public, there can be no way to ensure that the monies are flowing as intended. A commission that leans Democrat could just funnel Republican monies to their folks, or vice versa. Indeed, there would be no way to tell if the commission members weren’t sending some to accounts in the Caymans.
If it were public, it would be a simple matter for me to tell the Republicans that the money I donated was for them. And don’t think this couldn’t be made certain through other means. There’s no way anybody here would mistake me for a Democrat, fr’instance.
With all of that, you’re buying problems for no discernable benefit. At least none that I can see.
**Unless both the recipient side and the donor side are public, there can be no way to ensure that the monies are flowing as intended. A commission that leans Democrat could just funnel Republican monies to their folks, or vice versa. Indeed, there would be no way to tell if the commission members weren’t sending some to accounts in the Caymans.
If it were public, it would be a simple matter for me to tell the Republicans that the money I donated was for them. And don’t think this couldn’t be made certain through other means. There’s no way anybody here would mistake me for a Democrat, fr’instance.
With all of that, you’re buying problems for no discernable benefit. At least none that I can see.**
Well, the benefit would be the end of quid pro quo in politics. Isn’t that a good thing?
Say you’re appointed to serve on this commission, and you decide to funnel all the Pubblies’ money to the Demmies. There would be a law on the books punishing such actions severely. You’re going to risk years of your life on the off-chance that each of the other commissioners (who could be and should be from various political parties) will have access to all your accounts and could blow the whistle on you at any time, but somehow won’t? Why?
You could tell the Pubblies all their money has come from you, but you’d have no way to prove it. There would be people donating 1000 dollars saying “BTW, I donated 10,000” (or you could be a corporation donating 100,000 to the Demmies and tellling the Pubblies that they donating 100,000 to THEM) and all parties would learn to discount or dismiss such claims routinely. That’s the beauty part.
Where’s the quid pro quo now, though? I’m not at all convinced that one really exists.
Money doesn’t go to politicians who hold a position different from yours in the vain hope they’ll change. Think about how you donate, or would if you did so. You give money to candidates who believe as you do.
If that candidate becomes elected, and encounters political pressure, he can either hold his position, in which case he’s doing what you supported, or he can change his position, in which case your money didn’t buy squat.
So once someone becomes a candidate for a political office or works for the campaign of such a candidate, it immediately becomes illegal to give gifts to that person?
Where’s the quid pro quo now, though? I’m not at all convinced that one really exists.
Really? You think all those political contributions are being made out of a selfless, public-spirited impulse to do good, do you? I guess in the interests of those who take it as a given that there is considerable self-interest associated with political contributions, I’m requesting that those who think otherwise begin another GD thread entitled ARE POLITICAL CONTRIBUTIONS SELFLESS ACTS OF GENEROSITY?
This one is directed at those who perceive some self-interest under the current system, and perceive it as a problem worth fixing.
I don’t propose to get hijacked into arguing and demonstrating why water is so darned wet.
Priceguy: So once someone becomes a candidate for a political office or works for the campaign of such a candidate, it immediately becomes illegal to give gifts to that person?
Of course not. Political donations are largely made because of self-interest. I don’t believe there is a quid pro quo in most cases because the donations are being made to elect someone who believes as you do, and will behave in an expected way once elected.
Small businessmen will support pro-business candidates, not anti-business ones they hope to sway later by the power of their contribution. These days, contributions are relatively small, and amount to a drop in the bucket. No politician will radically change his positions just because one donor tells him to.
My experience in politics has indicated that money will follow a position, not the other way around. Votes are granted in the same way, so the quid pro quo just isn’t there.
If what you are saying, Mr Moto, is true, then, money would continue to flow unfettered towards those candidates whose stated positions are in line with the givers’.
“He’s a great candidate! I want him elected, and I will direct that my $50,000 goes to him. Gosh, if he only knew I was giving this to him, he might try to reward me, or give my incompetent nephew a job, but since he can’t know who gives him the money, and since I want him elected anyway with no kickback coming my way, I’m glad to give it to him because I think he’ll do what I want done politically and that’s reward enough.”–that takes care of those you’re describing. Now the ones who want a quid pro quo of some sort, they wouldn’t be as happy with my proposal, right?
And again, I don’t see how this can be done transparantly. And I believe transparancy needs to be a feature of the system, otherwise the risk of corruption is huge.
Explain to me, then, the flaws in my analogy with the IRS. The IRS knows a great deal about what individuals and corporations make and own, even illegally, yet are prohibited from publicizing this information, and the individuals who work at the IRS understand perfectly well the drawbacks in their making any use whatsoever of this information that the government keeps to itself. Where’s the transparancy here? You could as well argue “If I disclosed to the government how much money I make, there’s a terrible danger of corruption. An IRS agent could bid lower on buying my home when I put it up for sale because he could know how desperate I am after he looks at my tax returns. I must know everything about the IRS folks who are examining my returns–who they are, what conflicts of interest they may have with me–or else my livelihood is endangered.” But the tax system works fine without such transparancies as you demand here.
The flaw is that nobody is earmarking their taxes, directing their money be spent on this federal agency vice another.
Everything is pooled, and the federal budget is passed. Everybody pays for it and the budget is a public document.
In order to avoid corruption, donations on the one side must be public as well as expenditures on the other. Otherwise, people will have no confidence that their money is being spent as they directed.
Once you do that, the rationale behind this additional layer of bureaucracy vanishes.
You seem to be misunderstanding my point. I’m asking why we need to have X known, and your answer seems to be because we need X known. That’s just tautology.
If we were to create such an agency, and passed laws against any corruption by that agency, why would we need transparancy? All we’d need are some simple bi-partisan safeguards, which I won’t trouble to detail exhaustively, because as I say you’re bogging me down in very petty details that anyone can think up in an afternoon: simply, you’d have one bipartisan team of accountants in Cincinnati receiving contributions, and marking down who to send them to, and they deposit all the money in a bank account in Phoenix, where another team of bipartisan accountants disburses the money to parties and candidates in proportion to where it was intended to go, and the whole operation is overseen by a third group of accountants in Yakima making sure that everything is on the up-and-up). You don’t need to know that the government actually spends 16 cents of your individual taxes on X–all you ask is that every cent of our tax dollars is accounted for. That’s all you need do here.
Why would anyone make campaign contributions without an assurance the money is going to its intended target?
Your system prevents such assurance. My contribution earmarked for Bush might end up supporting LaRouche, and I’d be prevented from knowing this.
And no, I don’t regard the grinning assurances of a branch of the government to be enough. I get that already with my taxes, and see the government squander a good bit of that. Why on earth would I send them more money yet?
For crying out loud, I don’t even contribute to the Presidential Campaign Fund on my tax return, for just these reasons.