> I'd really like to hear ideas of how we can stop this racket
The simple solution - in the sense that it's an obvious one, and a naive one - is to just forbid campaign contributions altogether.
The simple solution - in the sense that it's an obvious one, and a naive one - is to just forbid campaign contributions altogether.
Campaign contributions are becoming / have become de facto bribery, but without campaign contributions only the independently wealthy can stand for office.
How about limiting how much an individual entity can donate? We don't allow the rich more votes because they've got more assets so could we not also restrict the amount they're able to donate?
How about restricting donors to entites entitled to vote in an election? Whatever my opinion on (say) Julia Gillard, I'm not eligible to vote for her or for any of her opponents because I've got nothing to do with Australia. Logically therefore (and my knowledge of Australian electoral law is almost nil, so this point is purely hypothetical), what is the justification for allowing me to influence the election by funding candidates?
Corporations don't have votes beyond the individual votes of their owners and employees in spite of their legal personhood, and that's good. Likewise, I think there's a case to be made that as unenfranchised legal persons, they shouldn't be able to influence elections financially.
It doesn't matter what laws you try to pass or what government you try to have. The entities who those laws threaten will fight against them.
What motivation does the smart people have if that happens? Entrepreneurs work hard and give up their social and personal lives to become successful and at the end of it if distribution of wealth happens who would want to do that?
So my comment was not just a remark but is a fact and he talks about wealth distribution any chance he gets.
One way to mitigate that is to ban independent advertising on behalf of candidates (SuperPACs), require all donors to donate into a common pot which candidates may draw equally from, and require all media companies to provide equal time to candidates on their networks.
A downside of this approach is that many insincere candidates may exhaust the common campaign financing pool. Requiring failed candidates to pay back a percentage of their spend may be a way to mitigate that (e.g. a "co-pay").
Doesn't this also create a pretty powerful disincentive for the non-wealthy to run?
As you pointed out, the challenge is to find the least bad one. In this country, many health plans require a co-pay of $10-$20 in order to see a doctor. The purpose of the co-pay is to deter would-be patients from flooding doctors with trivial inquiries who would then be able to bill insurers for their (wasted) time.
So, yes, a co-pay is a disincentive, but arguably less so than the disincentives present in the system it's proposed to replace.