# Take money out of politics **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 23, 2015, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-money-out-of-politics/713419 "2015-02-23T15:52:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-money-out-of-politics/713419/101 "2015-03-02T01:50:20Z")
And speaking of incumbents drowning out challengers, let’s say House member A can spend $1 million, and challenger B can spend $1 million. But the House incumbent can also direct oh, $100 million in spending to his district and he can go to his district to take credit for it. THAT’s drowning out. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-money-out-of-politics/713419/102 "2015-03-02T18:01:50Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > Except people do make a difference when they are allowed to spend their money for organizations. If I want to give $30 to NRA (or the ACLU, or pick your group here) then the NRA takes these small donations and gives millions of gun owners a voice in government that they would not have acting individually. Individually, I can’t match the Koch brothers or Romney/Kennedy money, but by pooling our money we can: democracy at its finest. Your proposal would stop that. You already assume an inequality in terms of money in your argument that I think would be addressed by my proposed rule change. You say that individually you can’t match the money of the Kochs. Your solution is to allow money (unlimited, limited, I don’t know what your specific preference is) so that us little guys can even up the influence through our sheer numbers. That’s one solution, yes But why not consider the other way? You obviously do admit that the likes of the Kochs and their outsized financial influence is a problem, you even say you can’t match them. So instead of bringing the 50000 of us little guys up to one Koch brother, my plan is to bring one Koch brother down to the level of us 50000 little guys. Its essentially the same plan, getting the same results, only targeted at the rich instead of the poor. If people could no longer contribute directly to a candidate or party, it would matter much less that that Koch’s have more money than you. It wouldn’t even things out completely, but its better than letting the Kochs run wild with their money. And that’s the point, trying to close the gap between the rich and poor. I’ll tell you why my plan is better. Right now, to even things up in terms of influence, its a Koch on one side with a truck full of money, and 50000 people on the other side with a hundred in each of their pockets. What do you think is easier to do, write a check out of an account you already have, or gather the donations of thousands of people? Do you think its easier for the Kochs to buy commercial time, make, and then show that commercial, or is it easier for you to do it once you have the money of thousands of people? You might say that SuperPACs and special interest groups bring you up to the level of the Kochs, but how many SuperPACs do you donate to? How many do you think the Kochs donate to, or fund, or created? In every instance, the avenues available to you and I to even things up are exploited by the rich so that they have more influence. Because you’re trying to treat all speech as equal and the same, you don’t see that some speech is more influential than others. Standing on a soapbox and yelling on the street corner is going to get you a lot less eyes and ears than a commercial seen by millions. This is why we need to target the rich and bring them down to our level, because their speech, per person, is worth more. Its not about restricting free speech, its about restricting the disproportionate influence some types of speech have over others. > [@jtgain](#): > > Corporations are more of the same principle. The fact that they are equity financed means that they require shareholders who vote for directors who represent those shareholders. The problem with that way of thinking is that shareholders don’t represent the true sample of what a corporation is made up of. You are forgetting the laborers who are the bulk of the actual corporation’s workforce and paradoxically do not have as much influence as a non-working shareholder who happens to have a lot of money to buy shares. This is why money in politics is a problem. You want to say that shareholders represent the corporation? Why? They are random people who have money who bought stocks but with no other ties to the corporation. They can cash in and out any time. They are only for profit, so they have no loyalty to the organization. The laborers do what the corporation is known for, whether services or manufacturing or whatever. They should have the bulk of the influence but because they are numerous and generally poorer, they don’t have the ability to buy influence. Plus, the goals of the shareholder differ from the laborer. Both want money, but the laborer wants stability. He doesn’t want to cash out after a raise because he can’t. The shareholder has no problems doing that. I don’t believe shareholders truly represent a corporation, therefore I am absolutely against a corporation being able to donate. Answer me this: why not just tell whoever wants to donate to simply donate out of their own pocket? Why do it through a corporation? Why does a corporation even need a unified message? There is absolutely nothing wrong with telling the CEO of Exxon that if he wants to donate, he should do it out of his own bank account and not through a corporate brand. Can the guy working in the oil rig in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico say that Exxon supports so-and-so because he works there? If not, the CEO shouldn’t get to do it either > [@jtgain](#): > > You seem to graciously allow me to hold a “Vote for Ted Cruz” party at my home with chips and beer. Suppose me and twenty others pooled our money and rented the local community center for that party with a dinner and a cash bar. I think you would grudgingly allow that. > > But if I organized a group called “Vote for Ted Cruz” with 50,000 members near me and we pooled our money (and God forbid if I organized it as a corporation) and rented a local sports stadium for a large rally, you would likely forbid it. > > So where is the principled difference between the house party and the sports stadium? Is it because I was too good at organizing? Is it because Ted Cruz was too popular? It seems the objection is because it is “too much money.” But it costs money to buy things. The objection, at least to me, seems the same as saying that my efforts were too successful and required more money to operate. Believe it or not, I’m not against free speech, as much as people opposed to me like to characterize my stance. You and I would have a much better conversation if you prefaced what you believed of me with “He really believes in free speech, so how does his plan further that?” rather than thinking that I’m against free speech in the first place. With that said, for the house party, that’s easy. People are allowed to organize for any reason without being regulated, its part of our freedoms that this country was founded on, though not for black people for the first 80 or so years. 😛 We have existing rules for SuperPACs. They are not perfect, but as I understand it from Colbert’s excellent series deconstructing SuperPACs, you can rent out a stadium and have whatever rally you want. The key is that you cannot coordinate with the party or candidate. You cannot call up the Cruz campaign and ask him what topics he’d like your rally to talk about, ask him what messages he wants you to push. You’d have to have your stadium of people do whatever random things a stadium full of people are going to do. And you know what? Doing that is HARD. Why don’t you see random rallys for Romney regularly selling out stadiums? Why is it that whenever thousands of people gather to support a candidate, its usually only after careful organization from the candidate’s campaign staff? Why aren’t the likes of the NRA and Americans for Prosperity, or whatever holding daily, weekly, or monthly sold out events at stadiums with thousands of members cheering on their preferred candidate? Because it is really really hard, that’s why. You saw that during the 2012 campaign, Romney had to photoshop campaign stop posters to make it seem like there were more people there. Sometimes he’d stop by a restaurant or a local landmark and talk to a few dozen people at most. So in answer to your question, no, I would not have an issue if you followed existing rules about coordination with a candidate (though I would probably restrict it some more) because you can’t do that realistically; you simply don’t have the power, the influence, and the money to. Where my regulations would stop you from acting is if the candidate himself wants to give you a million dollars out of his war chest so you can rent out the stadium. Sorry! You’d have to get these 50000 people to pony up the cash themselves and that difficulty is sufficient for me to not ban what you think I would be against > [@jtgain](#): > > Unless freedom of speech means simply yelling as loud as I can, money is a logical and necessary prerequisite to the right. Without money there is no free speech. I don’t understand why some of the left cannot understand that. Most people can yell in a range that is statistically similar to everyone else, giving everyone basically the same amount of freedom of speech. One Koch is worth ten thousand of you. Your argument would only apply if some people can yell ten thousand times louder than the rest of us. > [@jtgain](#): > > If I was able to get a law passed that said nobody could spend money on abortions, would you accept my argument that “abortions are not money”? You mean privately or as a part of government expenditures using tax money? ---
**Author:** ![Khendrask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3e96dc/32.png) [@Khendrask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khendrask)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-money-out-of-politics/713419/103 "2015-03-02T18:40:44Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Not even close. This is just a talking-point bouncing around the conservative media. And it’s not true. > > They came up with this claim by not counting undisclosed donations, which are the main way that really large amounts of money are donated. The Koch brothers, to give a prominent example, paid $4,900,000 in disclosed donations in the 2012 election and $407,000,000 in undisclosed donations. Ignoring the undisclosed donations greatly distorts the amount of money they gave. > > If you add in all the money that was donated, the Koch brothers donated $412,670,666 (I’m assuming the 666 was just their little joke). The top ten union donations combined added up to $153,473,251. This time around, they are planning to ‘contribute’ upwards of $900,000,000 to steer the elections their way. You think gramma and her $20 for a candidate she believes in can compete? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-money-out-of-politics/713419/104 "2015-03-02T18:46:55Z")
The _really_ stupid part of this debate is that the money has _always_ been a part of politics-the only thing most of these supposed “solutions” do is drive it back underground, making it next to impossible to find who is buying which politicians in the future. ---
**Author:** ![Syne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@Syne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Syne)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-money-out-of-politics/713419/105 "2015-03-02T19:54:45Z")
I say if a politician wants to run, their finances should be subject to public review. Full transparency. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-money-out-of-politics/713419/106 "2015-03-02T23:19:56Z")
> [@boffking](#): > > Our government is corrupt and too driven by donations. We need to limit campaign contributions to $1000, for both individuals and corporations. Also, ban PACs, and lobbyists. America always prides itself on being a democracy. Democracy means government of the people, by the people, for the people, but our government is ruled by billion dollar corporations. Let’s put the emphasis back on all the people, and not just people who can afford bribes. 1. Donations are already limited to $5,000 for PACs and $2,600 for individuals. Corporations are not allowed to give any money at all (but they can set up PACs). 2. Lobbying simply means telling Congress what you want. It’s a First Amendment right. It’s not the same thing as donations. 3. Donations aren’t bribery. They go to campaigns, not in the candidate’s pockets. And voters have total control over who is elected anyway. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-money-out-of-politics/713419/107 "2015-03-02T23:21:01Z")
> [@Syne](#): > > I say if a politician wants to run, their finances should be subject to public review. Full transparency. Full transparency has already existed for decades. All spending and income by a federal candidate must be reported to the Federal Election Commission, and any member of the public can view these reports. [fec.gov](http://fec.gov) ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-money-out-of-politics/713419/108 "2015-03-02T23:22:18Z")
> [@Khendrask](#): > > This time around, they are planning to ‘contribute’ upwards of $900,000,000 to steer the elections their way. You think gramma and her $20 for a candidate she believes in can compete? Gramma will be sending her $20, along with millions of others, to groups that pool the money to run ads. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-money-out-of-politics/713419/109 "2015-03-02T23:24:39Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Not even close. This is just a talking-point bouncing around the conservative media. And it’s not true. > > They came up with this claim by not counting undisclosed donations, which are the main way that really large amounts of money are donated. The Koch brothers, to give a prominent example, paid $4,900,000 in disclosed donations in the 2012 election and $407,000,000 in undisclosed donations. Ignoring the undisclosed donations greatly distorts the amount of money they gave. > > If you add in all the money that was donated, the Koch brothers donated $412,670,666 (I’m assuming the 666 was just their little joke). The top ten union donations combined added up to $153,473,251. None of these are donations to candidates. Donations by the Kochs to a candidate are subject to the same limits as anyone else - $2,600 per candidate. Any time the Kochs donate political money, it’s to a group that is spending it on speech, not giving it to candidates. Speech is a First Amendment right. Anyone can use any resources they have on speech as much as they want. The idea that someone can have “too much” speech and therefore the government can limit it is contrary to the very idea of freedom of speech. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-money-out-of-politics/713419/110 "2015-03-02T23:25:52Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > And speaking of incumbents drowning out challengers, let’s say House member A can spend $1 million, and challenger B can spend $1 million. But the House incumbent can also direct oh, $100 million in spending to his district and he can go to his district to take credit for it. THAT’s drowning out. So? He should take credit for what he does. The voters decide whether that’s a good thing or not. Who are you to say the voters are wrong? ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2015, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-money-out-of-politics/713419/111 "2015-03-03T00:42:07Z")
> [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > 1. Donations aren’t bribery. They go to campaigns, not in the candidate’s pockets. And voters have total control over who is elected anyway. Why are we against bribery? Because we don’t like the idea that money is a major consideration in the action of elected officials. Which is exactly what is happening with mixing lobbying and campaign finance. The only reason it isn’t bribery is due to a technical difference that those with money have managed to preserve, so that they can still buy influence. Just because it doesn’t meet the definition of bribery under current law doesn’t mean it is not bribery in the common sense. > [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > Gramma will be sending her $20, along with millions of others, to groups that pool the money to run ads. Great! So one Koch equals 40,000,000 grandmas. Not exactly what I would call democracy. > [@jtgain](#): > > Corporations are more of the same principle. The fact that they are equity financed means that they require shareholders who vote for directors who represent those shareholders. However, those votes for the board are weighted according to the amount invested, which are generally controlled by a relatively small number of well off investors or in insitituions, meaning that again there is only a relatively small number of very well off people who are making the decisions. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2015, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-money-out-of-politics/713419/112 "2015-03-03T00:53:28Z")
> [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > So? He should take credit for what he does. The voters decide whether that’s a good thing or not. Who are you to say the voters are wrong? No, just that challengers often have to greatly outspend incumbents to have a chance to win. Incumbents have a ton of advantages, and so any attempt to limit money in politics helps incumbents. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2015, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-money-out-of-politics/713419/113 "2015-03-03T00:55:06Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > Great! So one Koch equals 40,000,000 grandmas. Not exactly what I would call democracy. One Koch gets one vote, one grandma gets one vote. That’s democracy. There is nothing anti-democracy about some people having more ability to persuade than others. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2015, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-money-out-of-politics/713419/114 "2015-03-03T00:56:28Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > Why are we against bribery? Because we don’t like the idea that money is a major consideration in the action of elected officials. Which is exactly what is happening with mixing lobbying and campaign finance. The only reason it isn’t bribery is due to a technical difference that those with money have managed to preserve, so that they can still buy influence. Just because it doesn’t meet the definition of bribery under current law doesn’t mean it is not bribery in the common sense. It’s not bribery. It doesn’t benefit the politician personally. It goes to help him politically. If donations are bribery, than anything else that helps his campaign could be bribery, including volunteering for his campaign, putting a bumper sticker on your car saying vote for him, etc. The difference matters. > [@](#): > > Great! So one Koch equals 40,000,000 grandmas. Not exactly what I would call democracy. Except there are alot more grandmas than there are Kochs… > [@](#): > > However, those votes for the board are weighted according to the amount invested, which are generally controlled by a relatively small number of well off investors or in insitituions, meaning that again there is only a relatively small number of very well off people who are making the decisions. Good time to point out that in politics, everyone has exactly one vote. And money doesn’t vote at all. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2015, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-money-out-of-politics/713419/115 "2015-03-03T00:58:06Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > No, just that challengers often have to greatly outspend incumbents to have a chance to win. So? Apparently the voters like incumbents. That’s their decision. That’s democracy. > [@](#): > > Incumbents have a ton of advantages, and so any attempt to limit money in politics helps incumbents. Well, yes, I see your point now. Good luck. Sorry about the first answer. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2015, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-money-out-of-politics/713419/116 "2015-03-03T01:00:09Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > One Koch gets one vote, one grandma gets one vote. That’s democracy. There is nothing anti-democracy about some people having more ability to persuade than others. I’m always amused that the people mad about money equate money with democracy, while people like us have to remind them that it’s not. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-money-out-of-politics/713419.md?page=5)