Time To Flush Campaign Finance Reform

by Craig Cantoni

If you want to understand why campaign finance reform is a boneheaded idea, look at your toilet.

Your toilet now falls under the jurisdiction of the federal government.  Without any constitutional authority for doing so, federal bureaucrats started dictating a few years ago how much water new toilets could use per flush.  

Your commode is a daily reminder of how the federal government has stuck its nose into every nook and cranny of your life, including some crannies that are not polite to talk about in mixed company.

What do commodes have to do with campaign finance reform?  Everything.   

Campaign finance reform is supposed to remove special interest money and influence from politics.  But reformers ignore the reasons there is so much special interest money and influence in politics to begin with.  One reason is that the government creates special interests by regulating everything that moves, including the water in your toilet tank.  

No doubt, environmental special interest groups were behind the toilet water regulation.  And no doubt, American Standard and other toilet manufacturers joined together as a special interest group to influence the regulation in the proposal stage to make sure that the final version would not hurt their business -- as is their right under the Constitution and is their responsibility to their shareholders.    

Mr. Campaign Finance Reform, Senator John McCain, should know how the regulatory state has created special interests.  He married into one of the largest and richest Anheuser-Busch distributorships in the country.  Whenever Mothers Against Drunk Driving or another group concerned about alcohol availability and consumption proposes restrictions on drinking, the beer industry is quick to grab a seat at the regulatory table in Washington and to twist a few political arms on Capitol Hill.  

And to further protect the interests of the beer business, industry executives contribute to Political Action Committees, which give money to Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle.  It is a form of protection money, similar to the payola that shopkeepers in New York's Little Italy used to give to the Gambino crime family.  

Speaking of protection money and PACs, the media have misled the public into believing that corporations give contributions to candidates and parties.  Corporations are of course outlawed from doing so.  Corporate executives are permitted to give their own money to PACs, but they are not allowed to contribute corporate funds to candidates.  

The media also have misled the public into believing that rich corporations and conservative organizations like the National Rifle Association are the most influential special interests.  The media conveniently downplay the awesome influence of special interests on the left, including teacher unions, trial lawyers, environmental groups, nonprofit organizations and unions.  In my home state of Arizona, for example, the scores of private charities that receive public money banded together to fight state budget cuts, as they have fought tax cuts in the past.  But I digress.   

The government not only creates special interest groups through regulations, but it also creates them through the tax code.  It is more than a coincidence that the number of Washington lobbyists has increased in direct proportion to the growth in the complexity and length of the code.

And still another way that the government creates special interests is through subsidies, both direct subsidies and hidden subsidies.  An example of a direct subsidy is the $20 billion annual farm subsidy given to wealthy farmers and agricultural conglomerates.  An example of an indirect subsidy is Bush's 30 percent tariff on imported steel.  The tariff is an indirect subsidy to U.S. Steel Inc. and other integrated steel companies.  The subsidy will come out of the pockets of downstream steel users and consumers, who will pay more for steel and for products made from steel.  

Campaign finance reform will not reduce special interest influence in Congress.  The only reforms that will work are streamlining the tax code, returning to constitutional principles, and reducing the size and scope of government.

But even such reforms ignore the real problem.  The real problem is that too many Americans let TV ads influence their vote -- just as they let TV ads influence what brand of beer they drink or what brand of cheeseburger they eat.  Because the ads are effective, the majority of campaign funds are spent on producing and airing them.  The endless search for campaign contributions is driven to a large extent by the need to run TV ads to get elected.

What this says about the American voter is not flattering.  It says that the average voter is too apathetic and lazy to study campaign platforms, to read a variety of newspaper editorials and op-eds from both the left and the right, to listen to the few serious news shows on TV or radio, and to demand that candidate debates be more than rehearsed soundbites.  Apathy and laziness have fueled the growth of political shills and spinmeisters.      

In turn, voter apathy and laziness have been fueled by two developments.  The first is the merging of the two political parties, philosophically speaking.  The old labor-capital split between the parties has been erased.  Both parties believe in big government and disagree only on the pace of government growth and where the money should be spent.  Populism has replaced political principles.  Senator McCain is a prime example.  

The second development is related.  The liberal media-government-public education establishment has brainwashed the public into believing that conservatives and free market advocates are heartless, greedy, right-wing extremists.   As I have discovered from reader feedback to my articles, from my political activism and from guest lecturing at Arizona State University, even well-educated citizens are ignorant of the founding principles of this nation and the moral underpinnings of capitalism.  Thus, they have no historical or ideological context by which to make political choices.  

An electorate that believes that there should be no limits to government is an electorate that does not need to use discernment and intelligence in selecting political leaders.  If politics is nothing more than handing out free goodies, any leader will do.

These developments have led to the politics of self-interest and the fragmentation of society into narrow special interest groups.  If you are an environmental extremist and want Lake Powell drained, you pay membership dues to Greenpeace, knowing that the organization will represent your views.  If you are a well-off retiree who wants free prescriptions, you join AARP, knowing that the organization will lobby on your behalf.  If you work for Intel, you expect the company to fight to protect its interests in Congress, thus protecting your job security.  If you are a human resources professional, you join the 120,000-member Society for Human Resources Management, expecting the organization to support labor regulations that make you indispensable and increase your pay.

Last update: 3/20/2002; 9:16:08 AM.