Idéia interessante
Eis aí uma boa idéia.
Trecho: The money that fueled last year's elections came from a tiny portion of the electorate. Only one-quarter of 1% of American voters gave $200 or more in the 2002 election cycle. But their contributions added up to half of the total. Now that the McCain-Feingold law has increased contribution limits from $1,000 to $2,000, the balance of financial power will become even more top-heavy. Not only will the money primary favor well-organized economic interests, but wealthy ideologues of the right and the left also will have a field day.
Under the current system, candidates speaking for the concerns of ordinary Americans are disadvantaged. There is no guarantee that they will survive to the New Hampshire vote. As the money primary displaces the people's primary, the result will be a cycle of disillusionment. Primary voters will regularly confront an odd assortment of ideologues and apologists for special interests, but who will speak for mainstream Americans?
To break this cycle, we need to try something new: Give every voter a special credit card account containing $50 that they can spend only on federal election campaigns. Armed with their cards, voters could go to local ATM machines whenever they liked and send their "patriot dollars" to favored candidates and political organizations.
About 100 million Americans went to the polls in 2000. If they also had a chance to go to their ATMs, they would have injected 5 billion federally funded patriot dollars into the campaign -- greatly diluting the power of the private $3 billion spent by all candidates for federal office during that election. It's a small price to pay to democratize the system.
Eis aí uma boa idéia.
Trecho: The money that fueled last year's elections came from a tiny portion of the electorate. Only one-quarter of 1% of American voters gave $200 or more in the 2002 election cycle. But their contributions added up to half of the total. Now that the McCain-Feingold law has increased contribution limits from $1,000 to $2,000, the balance of financial power will become even more top-heavy. Not only will the money primary favor well-organized economic interests, but wealthy ideologues of the right and the left also will have a field day.
Under the current system, candidates speaking for the concerns of ordinary Americans are disadvantaged. There is no guarantee that they will survive to the New Hampshire vote. As the money primary displaces the people's primary, the result will be a cycle of disillusionment. Primary voters will regularly confront an odd assortment of ideologues and apologists for special interests, but who will speak for mainstream Americans?
To break this cycle, we need to try something new: Give every voter a special credit card account containing $50 that they can spend only on federal election campaigns. Armed with their cards, voters could go to local ATM machines whenever they liked and send their "patriot dollars" to favored candidates and political organizations.
About 100 million Americans went to the polls in 2000. If they also had a chance to go to their ATMs, they would have injected 5 billion federally funded patriot dollars into the campaign -- greatly diluting the power of the private $3 billion spent by all candidates for federal office during that election. It's a small price to pay to democratize the system.
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