Andrew Sullivan on Campaign Finance

Sullivan makes two solid points about campaign finance, points that are becoming more and more relevant:

I was talking to a friend yesterday who was complaining about all the money being spent on the presidential election. The $1 billion that will probably be spent could be better spent on any number of pressing social needs, he told me.

I don't know what the campaign will end up costing, but $1 billion sounds reasonable. According to the Campaign Finance Institute, combined receipts of the various campaigns came to $333 million in 2000 and $674 million in 2004. If one assumes that the numbers double every four years, then it wouldn't be surprising if all the candidates ended up spending $1.3 billion by the end of next year.

Is this a lot of money? Considering what is at stake, I don't think so. Consider the fact that Procter & Gamble has an annual advertising budget of $4.6 billion. General Motors spends $4.35 billion. There are probably dozens of companies that spend more than $1 billion per year selling us toothpaste, automobiles and all manner of other things.

In fact, most major, multi-national corporations, spend better than $1 billion on advertising per year, we are looking at $1 billion for a single four year election cycle. For what is at stake, the financing is a steal.

But Sullivan makes another salient point:

The real problem of money in politics is that contribution limits make it incredibly time-consuming and complicated to raise the money necessary to be competitive. In the Internet age, full and immediate disclosure is sufficient protection against abuse. With such a system in place, there is simply no reason for any limits on campaign contributions by individuals.

A number of campaign finance experts and a few Congressmen have made the point that in the internet age, there is not reason why the full disclosure of contributions in a real time or near real time fashion is not policy.

No credible campaign for federal office is going without a computer database and program for campaign finance reporting, at the very least they are using the FEC's freeware. There is no reason that regular submissions to the FEC, say every week for most contributions, and every 24-48 hours for major contributions, could not be the disclosure norm.

Of course to make that happen will take and act of Congress, an act that would run counter to their oft-expressed predilection against actually making campaign rules make sense.