Brad Smith On Presidential Funding System

Brad Smith takes on the idea that public funding for presidential campaigns has been a good thing. In particular, he notes two rationales that have been posited for its "success:"

First, every major party candidate has taken the money, at least in the general election; and second, challengers have defeated incumbents in 3 of six tries under the system. But the first seems to us not a measure of success at all, any more than we might measure the success of welfare by the number of welfare recipients, rather than any benefits to those recipients or to society, or any more than we would argue that the proliferation of government earmarks must be a good thing, since there are so many of them.

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The second argument at least has a ring of merit. Campaign finance laws are often criticized as pro-incumbent (I have made that criticism), so the fact that challengers can beat incumbents under the tax financing system, while not necessarily a plus for the system (though it is a valid criticism if self-dealing campaign finance laws rig the system to make it more difficult for challengers to compete with incumbents, there is nothing inherently beneficial in having challengers beat incumbents), it would on the surface seem to at least refute a major criticism of the system.

Brad remains unconvinced, as do I, for some of the same reasons.

At the Presidential level, it is far more likely for a challenger to defeat and incumbent. First and foremost, as Brad points out, getting the message out is not a problem major party presidential candidates face. Second, whether a challenger wins the presidency or not is far more dependent upon factors other than the ability to raise money or not so campaign finance simply does not play a part.

But a different reason occurs to me, and the reason why public funding for all levels of federal offices is unlikely to work without a constitutional amendment. The Presidency is the only term limited office extant under the Constitution. Thus it is easier for people to imagine a different officeholder as no matter what there will be someone different in the Oval Office within 8 years. Thus I believe is becomes psychologically easier to change horses in mid-stream since everyone knows a change is coming and if accelerating the change makes their lot in life a little better, so be it.

So unless, the Constitution is changed to implement term limits for Representatives and Senators, a public financing scheme is unlikely to work at all.

This is not to say that I think any public financing scheme can work in the long run for federal offices. First and foremost, unless expenses for campaigning can be controlled, which is extraordinarily unlikely to happen since it would necessarily involve price controls, there is no way for the cost of campaigning to be limited to the point where public financing is available to all.

Second, public financing requires a significant bureaucracy to monitor the qualifications for funds, the doling out of money, the use of the money, and any repayment issues if necessary. Such mechanisms require a great deal more oversight of campaign activities than the current law requires, a prospect that may cause some trepidation among members of Congress. An expanded FEC is not high on the priority list of Congress and not likely to pass muster.

Third, and finally, the presidential public financing scheme is hopelessly out of date--a problem of all public financing. Such public programs are all but designed to stagnate and reflect not current trends and issues, but long dead ideals. The current scheme itself was a reaction to Watergate, a past event that, in and of itself, was decidedly illegal. Campaign finance regulations should be time-neutral or at least be less time related than other laws. But campaign finance rules are generally slow to change (look at how long it took to index personal contributions to inflation). The Presidential funding system is long out of date and should not be revived.