RE: Media and Lack of Knowledge

[Reed Davis <rd100@delphi.com>]

Kevin T. Brady wrote:

> George Will had pointed out that we spend much more on potato
> chips than we do on elections each year. Perhaps that puts the
> issue in a more salient perspective.

What is George Will's point?  Is he saying that it's very little
money and that we should be spending more?  Remember, this is
the "potato chip money" of several hundred million people being
used to pay for the campaigns of just a few thousand candidates.
He is correct that it isn't very much money compared to our
federal budget.  The $2.5 billion spent on federal elections in
the 1995-96 campaign cycle is less than one tenth of one percent
of the federal budget for those two years.  Similarly, we could
fund all federal campaigns for the next ten years with far less
than one percent of Bush's proposed tax cut.

However, just because the cost is relatively low for the nation,
the money is still critical for the campaigns of those few
thousand candidates.  They are still open to corruption and they
still have to spend a massive amount of time raising the money.
Hence, it would seem like the sensible thing to do would be to
fund the campaigns with public monies.

Reed Davis