TJ Walker argues that 87% of Americans want campaign finance reform, but most proposals miss the real problem: candidates need money for digital advertising on Facebook, Google, and YouTube. He proposes taxpayer-funded campaign ads as the only fix, though it could cost hundreds of billions to a trillion dollars and faces political resistance.
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New polling data from the New York Times shows that 87% of Americans would like to either dramatically or completely overhaul the campaign finance system for elections in this country. Apparently, people are tired of seeing elections being completely controlled by billionaires and super PACs. But before we get too excited about this, let's look at the history of campaign finance reform. I've followed campaign finance reform since 1974, which was a big year for that sort of thing. Here's the problem with most campaign finance reform. It deals with the supply side of big money, but it typically never deals with the demand for big money. Now, it's important to note that the hundreds of millions, in some cases billions of dollars raised in election cycles, that money isn't all just going for fancy airplanes, fancy meals and new dresses and suits for political candidates, and even consulting fees. The money also is not going for direct bribes. Very few exceptions to voters, or direct bribes to elections officials or to judges. There can be exceptions. The vast, vast majority of money in campaigns is raised and then spent on advertising and communication. Now, traditionally it was TV ads, radio ads, bumper stickers, yard signs and billboards. That's what it's been like for the last 50, 60 years. Nowadays, campaigns still have to do all that stuff, but now they have to spend a fortune on Facebook ads and Google Ads and lots and lots of websites and videos discussing the policy position on every single issue. To go on a website and to go on YouTube and all these people to create messages and disseminate messages. Plus, you still need campaign workers to go door to door and tell people why to vote for the candidate of their choice. And if those are all volunteers, you need people to organize the volunteers that you have to pay. So campaigns are inherently expensive operations. Now, this were 40 years ago, we could do what a lot of countries do. And that is to say, okay, UTV station, you radio station, we're giving you a license. People own the airways. So in return, you're going to have to give a lot of airtime to candidates. And that would have worked 40 years ago, 30, even 20 years ago, that would have worked. But these days, the sorts of people who actually are not aligned with any party, truly independent voters who actually decide most elections, they're not watching much broadcast TV other than the Voice. They're not listening to AM talk radio, that's for sure. The people who are deciding most elections are, for the most part, consuming digital media, web pages, websites, YouTube videos, Netflix. And it's harder and harder to reach them. You're not going to reach them through traditional broadcast. So it's not as simple as just passing a law saying every TV and radio station has to give 30 minutes a day to candidates the last eight weeks of the campus. That's not going to solve the problem. There are only two ways of resolving this issue. The first resolution is do nothing. Not going to solve the problem. But that's one possible way of going down this. The other real way of reforming this in a way that would make some change is you're going to have to spend tax dollars on it. You're going to have to just tell the American tax people, excuse me, half a trillion dollars or maybe a trillion dollars we're going to have to spend on advertising to politicians. And you know what? It's going to be a lot cheaper in the long run because when politicians get into office, they're not going to have to give goodies back to their campaign funders. The problem with this is if you're a candidate running on the platform of campaign finance reform and having taxpayer funded campaigns, you're going to have an opponent who says, vote for me, TJ My opponent wants to waste all your hard earned tax dollars on nasty TV ads and I want your tax dollars to be spent on roads and schools and I would win. Historically that has been the case. So the problem is it's kind of like obese people and I consider myself one of them. It's like me saying, yes, I'm very much in favor of losing weight and having optimum health, but I just don't want to eat fewer calories each day. That's really very similar to voters who say they want to get rid of big money from campaigns but don't want to use their tax dollars to fund it. Somebody's got to fund it. Candidates have to communicate if they want to win, if they want to have a chance of having an impact, and if they are dramatically out communicated by their competitor, they're going to lose every time. It really is that simple. So that's my challenge to you folks. If you're tired of seeing billionaires write checks and get returns on their investment and being able to rent politicians, you got to cough up. There's no other way.
