Giving Political Candidates

the

Opportunity to Represent Their Constitutes

(The $1.00 Solution)

When the founders established the election procedures, there is no way they could have known how great the resources and structure of this country would become. Because the resources are so great, great is the amount of money it takes to get re-elected. And therefore our politicians, many are good people, must curry favor from their contributors and compromise their principals.

The solution is simple.  We need to pass laws limiting contributions for national elections to $1.00 per contributor. That includes the candidate himself, so no rich man could fund his own election. No business or other organization could give any money to candidates. These individual contributions could be repeated, but reduced for runoff elections.

The limit for state level candidates would be $5.00 and $10.00 for local elections. These amounts are larger because there are fewer people to contribute and a $1.00 amount may not provide enough money to conduct a meaningful campaign.

These amounts may need to be tweaked, but the amounts must be kept so low that no candidate would be seriously obligated to any individual or group. We could even consider “capping” the total funds available to any one candidate. For example national candidates could be limited to $50 million. You could set the cap low enough that all the candidates in the top group (say five) would all have the same amount of money to spend. The extra contributions above the cap could be given to the government to reduce the national debt, none could be spent for any other cause.

Limiting funds for candidates would require them to streamline their campaigns and shorten the election process. What a blessing that would be for all of us. The most frugal and effective candidates, playing on a level field, would win. Those characteristics would also be a blessing among our representatives.

This plan of limited contributions would eliminate the effectiveness of lobbyist because they could not promise any large amount of funding to the candidate.  Therefore the candidates could vote the will of their constitutes.

If this idea caught on like the Tea parties, it could happen. Then our elected officials could represent us rather than the almighty dollar.

Gl