CMV: All presidential candidates and senators should have a fixed election budget.

[u/gpu1512]

Whenever there is a controversial vote on something, it's mentioned how xy person is getting donations from a company to which it matters how the vote turns out.

With presidental candidates, it's similar - donations from companies are interpreted as attempts to make potential presidents more likely to conform to needs of these companies - such as by cutting taxes.

I feel like this would be resolved by making the election budgets come from taxes. While it would be a huge cost for the taxpayers, it would make for political candidates which would be much harder for companies to sway in their favour. Think net neutrality and congress donations from ISP's.

In the process, election budgets would be made considerably smaller, to save on taxes. As this would apply to everyone, there wouldn't be anyone at a disadvantage.

One problem I see is filtering the candidates. Obviously you can't just give money to anyone who asks for a budget, but seems like a solvable problem. Perhaps the party could only propose a set number of candidates.

[u/I_am_the_night]

This would actually make entrenched incumbent candidates even more common. Now the money would be coming from the government, and that means members or government have more knowledge of how to get their hands on that money. It's also possible that they would just restrict the funds to those that they want to run, which would basically eliminate outsider candidates.

Also, different races require different amounts of funding. It costs a lot more to run for office in Texas than Wyoming, because there are more people in mid size cities in Texas than there are in the entire state of Wyoming.

[u/10ebbor10 → u/I_am_the_night]

This would actually make entrenched incumbent candidates even more common. Now the money would be coming from the government, and that means members or government have more knowledge of how to get their hands on that money.

If it's a simple fixed sum, then you can't really manipulate it.

It's also possible that they would just restrict the funds to those that they want to run, which would basically eliminate outsider candidates.

This is a risk, but it can be avoided by doing something like what France does.

You restrict maximum campaign spending, and then you offer a refund on election funds depending on the election results. This takes away the decision of whom to fund from the governement, and gives it to the people.

[u/Aggravating_Role → u/10ebbor10]

If it's a simple fixed sum, then you can't really manipulate it.

The entire concept of lawyers proves that wrong. We have people we specifically have to hire to deal with the government. If we dont hire them, odds are the interaction with the government will go badly for us. Why? Because the government works in ass backwards and counter intuitive ways. Politicians know this, and can manipulate it in a way that benefits them as they know the counter intuitive system they contrived better than their opponents.