House passes bill ending public funding of campaigns

House passes bill ending public funding of campaigns

content.usatoday.com

The U.S. House passed a bill today to end public financing of presidential campaigns, but the bid to kill a system considered outdated by some Republicans is likely to end there.

The vote was 239-160. Ten Democrats supported the measure and one Republican voted no.

The Obama administration is "strongly opposed" to the bill and wants to see public financing for presidential campaigns "fixed rather than dismantled."

(visit the link for the full news article)

I saw this today on CSPAN.... Honestly I'm not sure what to make of this. I guess average joes will no longer have to foot the bill? Will we see more honest candidates or rather those that are more reliant on corporate pockets to line their own election coffers?

Instead, the bill seeks to have presidential candidates rely on private funds for their campaigns and transfer the remaining balance in the Presidential Election Campaign Fund to the Treasury to help pay off debt.

I'm Curious as to what ATS thinks of this..

content.usatoday.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

The Obama administration is "strongly opposed" to the bill and wants to see public financing for presidential campaigns "fixed rather than dismantled."

Why doesn't that surprise me?

The bigger story is how this exponentially INCREASES THE POWER OF CORPORATIONS in funding presidential elections.

This is yet another enormous slap in the face of the "little people" and our gov and their Corporate masters literally doing an "in your face, worthless tax-serfs".

It is the handing over of even MORE power to corporate controlled, bought and paid for government.

Just when you think things couldn't POSSIBLY get worse, our sell-outs up the bar of criminality and corruption even further.

Sigh.

I was hoping it would go in the exact opposite way. Individual anonymous funding with a 2000.00 limit. No corporate funds, no unions, no groups, no lobbyist. But alas, there goes our tiny and ever shrinking clout within our system. At what point will we be able to be the checks and balances again with our democracy up for sale.

Good: Don't know how they justified this to begin with.

Bad: No public funding might equal less transparency all around. Even less to answer for.

Bad: Yes, might increase the power of the already powerful ever so slightly.

No-op: But in reality? What's new here? They already have that anyway.

Somebody correct me if I am wrong. I thought that the public funding for presidential elections was optional. In other words the canidate had to choose either public funding or private funding.

Bah
I don't think this will pass
Obama will Veto it

Originally posted by DimensionalDetective
The bigger story is how this exponentially INCREASES THE POWER OF CORPORATIONS in funding presidential elections.

This is yet another enormous slap in the face of the "little people" and our gov and their Corporate masters literally doing an "in your face, worthless tax-serfs".

It is the handing over of even MORE power to corporate controlled, bought and paid for government.

Just when you think things couldn't POSSIBLY get worse, our sell-outs up the bar of criminality and corruption even further.

Sigh.

edit on 26-1-2011 by DimensionalDetective because: (no reason given)

The unions already have the power to contribute whatever amount they want. SEIU boasted about its $60 plus million donation for Obama's 2008 campaign. So this evens the playing field unfortunately.

What they need is sweeping reform in general. A fixed fund with the same amount going to the official nominees in each campaign.

The whole concept is a crock.

New Haven's glorious (D) DeStefano pushed hard as hell for public funding for elections. Promised fairness and all that typical crap.

This year he might actually lose the election (after 8 terms) so he opted out of public funding to raise more money.

It's just political gaming. The words have no meaning. They'll do whatever they want anyway.

Regardless of the rule/law/consequence nothing ever affects them. They'll work it and manipulate it and rape it and in the end it's always corrupt.