Note: Due to the recent closing of the Concord Standard, this article was not published. Consequently, I won’t be writing articles for the Standard.
While the Democrats scored the White House and scored serious gains in the House, Senate, and State Houses around the country – Conservatives scored a major victory: the beginning of the end of public financing.
In a story you may have missed, President-elect, then candidate, Obama opted not to take public financing after promising he would. While an adequate description of federal public financing would fill several editions of this paper, the basic concept is pretty easy: candidates agree to spending limits in order to have access to federal money for their campaigns. If both campaigns take public financing, a share of your taxes go to a campaign that you wouldn’t vote for.
Obama figured he could raise more money from individual donors than from the government. McCain, long a proponent of campaign finance reform, accepted the public financing with its limits. The result: Obama outspent McCain more than 10-to-1 in the first half of October alone.
As of November 5th, someone who supported Obama who continues to preach the virtues of public financing has just as much credibility as someone who claims to be a fiscal conservative and voted for Ted Stevens.
Public officials with any intellectual honesty will take the tired, 20th Century idea of taxpayer-funded campaigns and kill it as soon as possible. We must reappropriate funds towards core government services like roads and public safety. While it used to be unlikely that politicians would kill programs that were designed to take hard-earned money from you and me coercively to promote them without them having to work for it – the election of Barack Obama offers all taxpayers hope.
I will be shocked – completely shocked if the Democrat-controlled General Assembly does not work to cut out the wasteful public funding scheme and restrictions on freedom of speech for Judges and Council of State. I would implore out local representatives to listen to the voice of the people who voted against welfare for politicians and for hope and change. As a fellow Republican, I call on Representatives Linda Johnson and Jeff Barnhart, and Senator Fletcher Hartsell to reach across the aisle and offer their enthusiastic support to lifting the restrictions on free speech within the General Statues that were brought by the introduction of this program in the earlier part of this decade. I’m sure that the Democratic leadership in the North Carolina General Assembly will consider the example of our President-elect who they all supported and make legislation to abolish taxpayer-funded campaigns.
Can we bring back free expression and end public assistance for politicians?
Yes, We Can.
