Personally I believe we now live in a corporatocracy.
Corporatocracy - Wikipedia(%2F%CB%8Ck%C9%94%CB%90rp,business%20corporations%20or%20corporate%20interests.
Has large corporations learned that more profit is earned via political activity than productive economic activity?
Flashy, good enough, nondurable products replace formally well made durable goods seem to be the trend and engaging in political activity tilt taxation and laws in the desired corporate approved direction.
What say ye?
What doesn’t money in politics endanger?
Yes, the Supreme Court ruled that businesses have no limits on what they can donate to political issues.
Yes, that gives financial much potential to influence voters and elections.
Better if well educated voters make their own decisions. But where do they learn about the issues. Media? Is it biased or balanced? Influenced by ad dollars? The entertainment value? To attract eyeballs and increase ad revenue.
Govt funded election campaigns could help. Congress could pass laws limiting commercial influence.
What is the right answer? What do you suggest?
There used to be government funding, with limits on other contributions. From 2008:
Obama to decline public financing
https://www.politico.com/story/2008/06/obama-to-decline-public-financing-011202
In a widely expected move that will give Democrat Barack Obama a huge cash advantage over Republican John McCain, Obama announced Thursday morning that he will be the first modern presidential candidate to decline public financing in a general election.
Obama’s decision represents a break from the strong signals he sent last year about his commitment to the public financing program. It means his campaign, which has shattered fundraising records, won’t accept the federal system’s $84 million in taxpayer money, but also won’t be subject to its $84 million spending limit…
Thursday’s move has opened Obama to criticism that he backed away from a pledge to accept public financing, which stems from Watergate-era reforms intended to reduce the power of special interests.
DB2
Ah, there’s the rub.
How the Democrats Spent $1 Billion and Still Lost
Vice President Harris’s campaign raised twice as much as Trump’s during her compressed White House run
Was it Citizen’s United that really got this ball rolling ?
So unless that gets tossed out, is there any real chance
of changing the way that campaign donations shape our elections? But as the saying goes, it’s hard to put the genie back in the bottle.
Sometimes it feels like we’re living out the book 1984.
But, I keep telling myself: The American People Have Spoken, so will live with the results.
We could use Canada as a template.
Canada’s [federal](Federal Government | The Canadian Encyclopedia) election finance laws put limits on contributions to political parties and candidates. Only individuals — not corporations or [trade unions](Trade Unions | The Canadian Encyclopedia) — may donate. Contributions are limited to up to $1,500 a year to each political party and up to $1,500 to all of the registered [electoral district](Redistribution of Federal Electoral Districts | The Canadian Encyclopedia) associations; as well as contestants seeking the party’s nomination and candidates for each party. In addition, donors may give up to $1,500 to leadership contestants and up to $1,500 to independent candidates. These limits were set in 2015. The amounts increase by $25 each year. Politicians must disclose the names of anyone who donates more than $200.
I can already hear the screeching from corpoate entities. 
The above severely limit the funds available to a candidate.
But there is some public reimbursement from the government.
*political parties and candidates are reimbursed for some of their election expenses. ( See Political Campaigning in Canada.) Political parties that received either two per cent of the national vote or five per cent of the vote in the districts in which they ran candidates get back 50 per cent of the money they spent. Candidates who received at least 10 per cent of the vote receive 15 per cent of the election expenses limit in their district. If the candidate spent at least 30 per cent of the limit during the election, the reimbursement increases to 60 per cent of what the candidate
The lack of money limits the length of campaigning.
The longest federal election campaign since 1872:
78 days in 2015
Televised debates should be paid for by the government.
The quality of recent debates is lacking likely due to the quality of candidates. The televised debates between Kennedy & Nixon was very good.
Thanks for the suggestion. That sounds like a Good idea.
Canada probably does allow lobbysts to represent the views if businesses to parliament.
Europe has a long tradition of people at court to present their views to the king.
In the US at Shay’s Rebellion, voters cancelled their mortgages. That made every loan a gift and loans became unavailable. Founders realized the value of lobbysts to bring caution on new proposed laws.
We need lobbysts but how to limit their influence? Limiting campaign contributions is one way. But they are clever abt avoiding rules. Such as donating services like campaign mailings or phone requests for donations.
Classify such “donations” as taxable events and require a 10x payment to EACH OF the opposition parties by the donor(s).
I don’t recall if my 23 tax return had it, but, for decades, tax returns have had a check box for $1 of your refund to go to the Federal presidential campaign fund. iirc, using that Federal money has strings attached, so some pols decline to take the government money. I suspect that the “protected free speech” coming from opaque sources dwarfs the Federal money, but also has strings, which are also opaque, to the public.
Steve
Good idea. But how do you get them reported. How do you enforce that. Gray market under the table very possible. Donor probably deducts it as a business expense.
You imply a need for good laws and lots of audits. But we already have a shortage of auditors as Congress underfunds the IRS.
As noted in the article, candidates went along with the Federal funding plan until Obama in '08. Then, since there was more money to be had outside the Fed limits…
DB2
The Citizens United decision was handed down by SCOTUS on January 21, 2010, thus legitimizing USian politics being flooded with dark money.
Steve
Do you ever wonder if we would be better off today if we had never rebelled against England? Looking at Canada, New Zealand and Australia makes me wonder. We would have gotten rid of slavery sooner, too. American exceptionalism? I’m not so sure.
If the colonies had not rebelled over taxes in 76, there probably would have been a rebellion against the outlawing of slavery. Oh wait, there was a rebellion over slavery, and “merry olde” tended to lean toward the south, to get all that lovely tobacco and cotton. History gets complicated, doesn’t it?
Steve
Yes, very hard to say how it would have all played out. But the British Empire (mostly) abolished slavery in 1833. God only knows how that would have played out in the American South if we were still a colony.
Slavery Abolition Act, (1833), in British history, act of Parliament that abolished slavery in most British colonies, freeing more than 800,000 enslaved Africans in the Caribbean and South Africa as well as a small number in Canada.
Most northern states abolished slavery before 1800. But slaves were enslaved usually to age 25 and children born to them were also enslaved. Plus slave owners in other states could bring their slaves into free states.