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Then only independently wealthy candidates or publicly funded candidates could run.

pavel_lishin 15y ago
Yup, that's why it's naive. One possible patch for this issue is to forbid spending money on elections, but again, that just opens up new cans of worms.
- dwiel 15y ago
  As long as we have an uneven distribution of wealth, we will have an uneven distribution of power. 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.
  - functionoid 15y ago
    You sound a lot like Obama, who wants everyone's paycheck to be same except his own.
  - functionoid 15y ago
    Down voting is not going to help, have you heard his any speech in last year? in most of his speeches he has talked about distribution of wealth. 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.
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
- politician 15y ago
  As a society, we need acknowledge that using money to influence voters is simply a way to increase voting power beyond "1 man, 1 vote". 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").
  - pavel_lishin 15y ago
    > 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?
    - politician 15y ago
      There would need to be a mechanism which prevents insincere candidates from looting the common campaign financing pool. 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.

Yup, that's why it's naive. One possible patch for this issue is to forbid spending money on elections, but again, that just opens up new cans of worms.

dwiel 15y ago
As long as we have an uneven distribution of wealth, we will have an uneven distribution of power. 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.
- functionoid 15y ago
  You sound a lot like Obama, who wants everyone's paycheck to be same except his own.
- functionoid 15y ago
  Down voting is not going to help, have you heard his any speech in last year? in most of his speeches he has talked about distribution of wealth. 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.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
politician 15y ago
As a society, we need acknowledge that using money to influence voters is simply a way to increase voting power beyond "1 man, 1 vote". 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").
- pavel_lishin 15y ago
  > 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?
  - politician 15y ago
    There would need to be a mechanism which prevents insincere candidates from looting the common campaign financing pool. 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.