|
There is a case to be made that ability to attract money operates as a gatekeeping function for a national candidate, meaning that it's necessary but not sufficient. To illustrate my point: if I run for president in a publicly financed system, there is nothing to stop me from dipping my hand into the public's pocket and running for president. The taxpayers would be obligated to finance my quixotic dream (or egomaniacal quest, as you might choose to see it), no matter how insane it might be for me to think I would remotely be qualified to be president. Or Senator, or Congressman.
But if I'm required to actually convince people to part with their hard-earned money to support my candidacy, then at the very least I have passed through an evaluative process by a skeptical audience and passed. So Tom Vilsack drops out of contention but Hillary Clinton does not. Why? Hillary can persuade people she would be a credible candidate and deserves their support/money. Tom Vilsack would not be.
To some extent, the discussion about "taking money out of politics" is a kabuki dance that masks other concerns. Money isn't significant in itself. It's a tool, it's a lubricant, it's a mechanism for storing value or expressing value. In that sense it's no different from any other method of expression or commitment. It's certainly nothing to get supersitious about, and I believe all these restrictions are basically corollaries of a superstitious approach to money.
My own view is that there should be a system of incentives rather than rules, and information enhancement rather than prohibitions. Federal judges are almost uniquely trusted to do their jobs precisely because of their incentive structure: they can never be disciplined for their rulings because they have pay protection and life tenure. I'm not recommending that for Congress or the President, obviously, but what I'm suggesting is that their incentive structure be aligned to make them independent of those who seek to make legislators dependent on them. Singapore, for example, pays certain high ranking government officials salaries comparable to high-ranking corporate executives, which is a fairly effective antidote to corruption. Of course it has downsides, too.
|