(Note to my regular readers. This is a serious one. Can you forgive me? I'll get back to humorous stuff, I promise. Garbage like this just really riles me and I must vent or explode.)

Resources

1. Changes to Presidential Financing Eyed, AP article


2. Q&A About the Presidential Public Financing Program, Bush campaign financing watchdog group (partisan group but this Q&A distills the program quite nicely)


3. The Presidential Public Funding Program, Federal Election Commission government site

Background

The Presidential Public Financing Program is funded by taxpayers who check that $3 donation box on their federal tax returns. It does not increase individual tax burden, it simply takes $3 of taxes that would go to the general fund and earmarks them for this program. Participation has declined steadily since the programs inception, falling "from a high of 29 percent in 1981 to less than 12 percent today" (2).

The program was intended to reduce the disproportionate influence of wealthy contributors, reduce the demands of fundraising on candidates and assist candidates who did not have access to large sums of money. The actual program offers matching funds for primary candidates, grants for party Presidential nominating conventions and grants for general election campaigns of major party nominees and partial funding for qualified minor and new party candidates. It also imposes spending limits on campaigns that participate in the program. (3) (emphasis mine).

Step 1: Identify the problems (per the nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute)(1)

1. "the program's perennial funding shortfalls put it at risk of insolvency by the 2008 election."


2. President Bush has opted out of primary public financing for the 2004 campaign (as he did in 2000). John Kerry and Howard Dean are also considering skipping public financing. This "show[s] the system needs changes to become more attractive to candidates".

Step 2: Propose ways to fix the program (also per the nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute)(1)

1. Raising the taxpayer checkoff to $5, generating an estimated $122.6 million more for the program.


2. Giving primary candidates a 3-to-1 match for the first $100 of each contribution rather than the current 1-to-1 match for the first $250 of a donation.


3. Raising the primary spending limit to the same amount as the general election, from the current $45 million to about $74 million.


4. Letting a candidate who takes primary public financing spend the same amount as someone who doesn't.


5. Allowing national party committees to spend an additional $15 million on their presumptive nominee's behalf during the spring and summer after the primaries.

Step 3: Bitch slap the 13-member task force of the Campaign Finance Institute that came up with this nonsense Fisk away

Problem 2: Wealthy and well funded candidates are opting out of matching funds for party primaries. Exactly how is this a problem? Say it again. Wealthy and well funded candidates are financing their own primary campaigns. How does this conflict with the stated goals of the program? The only reasonable explanation I can think of is that the Institute wants all candidates under the spending caps to prevent disproportionately robust campaigns from the big name candidates. That would come under campaign reform and is not in the scope of this program.

Fix 1: The main problems with the tax return check box are that people are unfamiliar with the problem. Many people either think this goes to reelect the current president (or party) and/or that it costs them $3. Raising this to $5 might bring in more for the program but not nearly enough as it does not address the central problem of taxpayer misconception. Better education and clearer description/instruction is the answer either in lieu of or in addition to this change.

Fix 2: This will increase the burden on the program by a significant amount. All minor contributions will triple in the amount of matching funds and it will not be difficult for fund raisers to get people to give less to take advantage of the factoring. This is an obvious attempt to make the program more attractive to prospective candidates in support of Problem 2, which is quite simply a bogus problem.

Fix 3: Another massive increase on the program burden to the tune of $19 million per candidate. Of course not all candidates will be able to take advantage of this increase, only the wealthiest and best funded ones. This might indeed attract a Bush, Kerry or Dean in support of bogus Problem 2 but will have a net affect of increasing the disparity between campaings of robust candidates compared to the rest. This would go directly against the premise behind bogus Problem 2, namely the leveling of the campaign playing field.

Fix 4: This one isn't too bad on its face. There is a maximum cap to how much the program will give a candidate so there wouldn't really be any additional exposure to program funds. It simply allows the candidate to spend more than the current limits without giving any more money from the program. Once again, though, this is done in support of bogus Problem 2 - attracting big money candidates to the program. This will allow candidates like Kerry and Dean to join the program, take matching funds and still spend as much as Bush, who is not participating. This does very little except to penalize the first candidate to opt out of the program by denying him the matching funds that will be used by the other big spenders.

Fix 5: Another one in support of bogus Problem 2. This does nothing to the program fund but makes the program itself more attractive to big party candidates.

Summary:

The essential problem is that the Institute task force is trying to morph the Presidential Public Financing Program into a bandaid for campaign reform. Campaign laws need to be changed but this is not the place to do it. By trying to shoehorn campaign control into the program these proposals will greatly increase the burden on the program fund while doing very little to address the absolute and concrete problem of the program's failure of solvency.

Strip off bogus Problem 2 and Fixes 2 through 5. Add educating taxpayers about the real effects of checking that contribution box on their tax returns. That is a viable solution to the real problems facing the Presidential Public Financing Program.

Note:

The Campaign Finance Institute is affiliated with George Washington University in DC and is not a political body. However, the task force members are very influencial in their fields and include "Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell; William Brock, a former Republican National Committee chairman; Carol Darr, former general counsel to the Democratic National Committee; and Richard Davis, a political consultant and adviser to Sen. John McCain." That last is of particular concern as Senator McCain is a sponsor of new campaign finance law. (1)