Quote Originally Posted by EL Jimbo View Post
100% publicly funded campaigns with caps on total expenditures allowed
Zero TV advertisements
No PACs or dark money of any kind

The costs to run a campaign have risen so much that anyone running for a federal or statewide level office either has to be independently wealthy or becomes entirely beholden to the opinions of the big donors that contribute to their campaigns. The average person is entirely shut out of the process other than voting for the person who took more money from the group of special interests you somewhat agree with as opposed to the one who took more money from the special interests you disagree with. Both candidates are bought and paid for to the point where they are listening to those groups and not their constituents.

Then the whole thing with PACs and dark money is an entirely different thing. They are these groups with cryptic names and untraceable monetary resources. They do a great job of telling you what you should think and who or what you should vote for, but we don't know why they are telling you that or who is telling you that. The current laws make the process so secretive, that it is entirely plausable that foreign governments could very well be providing funding to support stances that are in their best interests and not in the best interests of the United States...and nobody would know.

100% public funding puts everyone on an equal playing field. The electrician has just as much say as the CEO. It allows people from all walks of life the ability to run for office and serve their community/state/country without requiring immense financial resources or being required to maintain promises to those that do have those resources. In addition, it would break the two party stranglehold on our political system as every candidate from every party will have the same opportunity to share their stances and ideas so that voters can weigh and measure them all equally.
I do share your concern about money in politics. But I don't share your belief in a centrally planned solution.

Imagine the Detroit City Council of just a few years ago in charge of elections. Imagine the efficiency of DDOT being brought to your local campaign events. Imagine the Dearborn City Council of 1955 running the debates.

The beautiful world of equality and fairness are alluring, but history tells us that centrally-planned solutions end up destroying rather than enhancing politics.

Better to trust the people to be able to detect b.s. and elect good politicians. Keep a massive dialogue going. And head towards full disclosure solutions, with all the ugliness of retaliation therein. Every previous attempt to control campaign finances have failed, and in fact have made the situation worse.

it is very hard to believe, but the noisy system we have is remarkably good at delivering fair results. Is there some 'quid pro quo' Unions buy Democrats or bankers buy Republicans? Of course. But you are wrong if you think the world you describe above won't have back room deals made by those in power to stay in power, too.

Err on the side of free speech.