The Fiscal Insanity That Is Our Election Process

As the midterm election process finally and gratefully draws to a close, it seems like it would be a good time to review the insanity that has entrenched itself in our electoral process when it comes to campaign spending. Consider a recent Washington Post online article by Ruth Marcus that appeared in the October 29, 2010 issue of The Week magazine:

- According to the article, Republicans will receive and spend more than $100 million from anonymous donors, an outrageous sum that has been loudly criticized by the Democrats.

- However, in 2004, Democrats set up campaign groups that fronted for labor unions and big dollar individual contributors, which contributed more than $150 million to the Democrats.

- Ms. Marcus reported that the "hapless" Federal Election Commission levied only a $1.3 million fine on this 2004 outrageous spending three years after the fact which, obviously, had no impact on election results.

- The $1.3 million fine is a pittance of a slap on the hand, less than 1% of the amount collected.

According to the article's conclusion: "When it comes to campaign cash, Democrats and Republicans have essentially the same position: when we have more to spend because of some loophole in the law, that's just fine; when the other side has more money, democracy is being subverted."

According to a recent article in the St. Petersburg Times, House and Senate candidates running for office in these midterm elections have already shattered the previous campaign spending record and will likely spend over $2 billion in total on this election. According to the article, this is roughly equivalent to about $ 4 million spent per vacant Congressional seat. This number obviously does not include the money being spent at the local, county, and state government levels for their elections and does not include special interest group spending which the article estimates could be as high as $400 million.

And while the numbers are high, the consequences are not. A 2006 U.S. News and World Report article by Dan Gilgoff showed that once a politician gets into office, the access to campaign funds almost always guarantees that as an incumbent, that politician will almost always stay in office. The title for the article was "A Fake Democracy? Why No One Has Much Chance of Toppling Congress's Incumbents." According to the article, in the 2004 elections, 98% of the incumbents retained their seats. You cannot be living in a democracy with that kind of re-election rate.

And the financial situation seems to be getting worse. If you believe Mr. Giloff's numbers, in 2004, it cost about $1.5 million to run a House Of Represenatives campaign. Just six years later, that cost is now about $4 million, two and a half times larger than in 2004. The article concluded in 2006 that the increasing costs were stifling competition for political seats, creating a state of "partisan stasis."

How outrageous is all this insanity? Consider some simple math:

- The average Congressional office holder makes about $170,000 a year in salary. If you divide the campaign cost by the salary of the eventual winner you get a ratio of more than 23 to 1. In other words, for every salary dollar received, more than $23 will be spent to receive that $1. Makes no sense on the surface.

- If the average flu shot costs $10 per shot, then this $2 billion could have given two thirds of the country's population a free flu shot.

- If you had been alive since the birth of Christ and had spent $2,500 a day, every day from then until today, you still would have not spent $2 billion.

- According to a Parade Magazine article a few years ago, $2 billion could hire almost 5,000 teachers for a year, buy the health insurance for 50,000 American households and provide 83 million school lunches for needy children.

Obviously you can go crazy with the numbers. The bottom line, though, is that $2 billion total, $4 million per Congressional seat, is a lot of money to spend for a job that only pays $170,000. It is this 23 to 1 payback that illustrates how much power and freedom has migrated away from the ordinary citizens in this country to those sitting in Congress. No sane person would personally pay $23 to possibly win back $1, if successful. Only in an American election can this type of irrational behavior be considered rational.

And the holier than though attitude of the Democrats in this election does not hold water. We all know that if any politician can get their hands on money to ensure their re-election, then principles go out the door. The Democrats are not mad because the Republicans are spending so much money. They are mad because they do not have that amount of money to spend this time around like they did in 2004. Their hypocrisy is incredible. No one says that any politician HAS to take the money presented to them for their election campaign. However, has there ever been an politician that not take money shown to them?

It is obvious from this insanity that our political class at all levels of government cannot control their urges to take any money at any time to ensure their comfortable positions in Congress and elsewhere. That is why the following suggestions are needed to take the money decisions out of their hands and structurally change the election process in this country:

- Step 1 - allow only individual Americans to contribute to election campaigns, not corporations, unions, PACs, etc. The U.S. Constitution guarantees freedom of speech for individuals, not organizations.

- Step 2 - allow only those affected by an election to contribute to their respective election campaigns. For example, only those living in a specific Kansas Congressional district should be allowed to contribute to those running for Congress from that election district, i.e. no outside money allowed.

- Step 3 - strengthen the Federal Elections Commission by staffing it with seasoned prosecutors, not political appointees, so that cronyism is not a factor in prosecuting election law violations.

- Step 4 - hold all of the Democratic and Republican primaries on the same day in order to shorten the election cycle that should also result in less money being spent on the primary election cycle.

- Step 5 - impose single term limits on all politicians which would remove a huge amount of corruption and money exchanging going on since a lame duck politician, which a single term politician would be, would not be given campaign funding for their re-election since it does not exist anymore.

These steps, when implemented, would greatly reduce the amount of money that goes into our election process and would reduce the distortion that the huge amounts of money cause. Waiting for our political class to voluntarily behave is not going to happen, they are part of the insanity. Only the structured electoral changes listed above in these steps will restore sanity and fairness to our election process.

And, a side benefit of these steps might be that some of this wasteful $2 billion would find its way back into society and be used for some more useful purposes, such as growing the economy, adding teachers to our schools, increasing the health benefits of our citizens, etc.