How To Reduce Super Pacs

According to Michael Stinnett who wrote an article about the negative consequences of super PACs on elections he says Super PACs “allowing wealthy donors to buy elections”(Stinnett). His fear is due to Super PACs having very lax campaigning rules and regulations it has the potential to let the wealthy few give all of their money to people who once in office support bills and law that will be beneficial for the donors. Michael Stinnett even went as far as saying “Super PACs are a pernicious influence on society and should be abolished”(Stinnett). Not only does he has this negative feeling about Super PACS, But he shares them with approximately two-thirds of americans who understand the new rules according to a new study done by the pew research center (pew

Elissa Nunez of NBC News reports that 64% of Americans believe that the big money in politics discourages many great candidates from running (Nunez). On top of this number, 76% of people believe that "money has a greater influence on politics and elected officials today than in the past," (Nunez). These numbers lead to a fundamental issue in our government; a huge distrust in our federal government. Only a month after 9/11, 60% of citizens said they could trust the federal government, however, following the Iraq war and an economic downturn the number dropped to a mere 24% in 2007

I agree that, deep down, there is something wrong with the way in which campaigns in the United States are financed. There is little doubt that large corporations and/or special interest groups have a “quid pro quo” expectation attached to the outlay of large sums of money (an expectation of a direct exchange of campaign contributions for favorable government treatment).

With the introduction of “soft” money in politics, elections no longer go to the best candidate, but simply to the richer one. Soft money is defined as unregulated money that is given to the political parties that ends up being used by candidates in an election. In last year’s elections, the Republican and Democratic parties raised more than one-half of a billion dollars in soft money. Current politicians are pushing the envelope farther than any previous administrations when it comes to finding loopholes in the legal system for campaign fundraising. The legal limit that any one person can contribute to a given candidate or campaign is one thousand dollars. There is, however, no limit on the amount of money one

Some say that Super PACs are immoral and unjust; however, Super PACs abide by the First Amendment. In the Supreme court case “Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission”, it was decided that the government is not legally allowed to prohibit the expenditures for political campaigns; as long as they are not corrupt and are not lying to the general public or affluent attributes about where the money is really going i.e. their own pockets or towards another or opposing fund. It is fair since candidates are not

With great money comes great power. In the United States, the richest men and women of the country own the top 20% of wealth. The kind of money the wealthiest people in the country have, they can approve or disapprove any law passed by the government. So, money brings on power over the government. The government mostly pays attention to the monetary backbone of the country; if the backbone is not satisfied then trouble can brew. That is why the poorest people in the United States decide not to be active with politics because they feel as if their vote will make no difference. They will be in the same situation no matter who the president

Political campaign financing refers to all finances that have been raised and expended in order to promote political candidates, parties, and initiatives. According to a survey conducted in November 2018, when questioned “Do you know what political campaign financing is?” approximately 50% of respondents answered yes, 27% answered no and 23% answered that they had heard of it. The same survey relayed that only 4% of participants had positive views, 35% had negative views and the remaining 61% were unsure of their views on campaign financing. Yet when asked the question “Regarding the role of money in American political campaigns, what level of influence do you think money has?” 96% of respondents said too much,

The government of the United States is one of the most effective and thoroughly formed governments in the world today. There is no doubt that it has its advantages and provides helpful balance in ultimate power. However, our system is not without its flaws. In fact, many things keep the U.S. from operating as smoothly as it could potentially operate if it weren't bogged down by selfish interests. All of our problems in government stem from personal sin and lust for power and prestige. One prime example of this is the role money plays in influencing American politics. Money can be used to bribe, manipulate, cheat, deceive, and do all kinds of damage to our system of government. We do not need to look far to see how people will bend over backwards

Part of the purpose of government is to prevent corruption not encourage it, which is what allowing unlimited campaign funding does. How does unlimited campaign spending cause corruption? It causes corruption by allowing money to influence politics which is not how democratic elections are designed to be. An example of this is seen in even public elections. When one gets to a poll to vote, even if one doesn’t know any of the candidates personally, would the one vote for the candidate they’d never heard of or the candidate they had seen signs for all over people’s yards and advertised on the T.V. and the radio, or the candidate they had never heard of? Well the one whose name they recognized from advertising, simply because they knew the name and it sounded familiar. This might seem like a small thing, but this costs money. All the signs, T.V., and radio commercials cost money. Even though the opponent might be better but without publicity, it is hard to get

Thanks to our representative democratic system, America is becoming more Oligarchic since our “one person, one vote” method continues to help the superrich as they continue to stealthily tilt the voting scale in their favor. This discouraging state of affairs continues to thrive all because some devious representatives also profit from it, and they are very crafty in how they shield the public view from their obscure mechanisms. Money should not influence elections, this is not true of

The way PACs work, is they receive donations from individuals or companies. After receiving donations, these political action committees can donate to candidates if it is a traditional PAC. However, if it is a Super PAC, the organization can receive as much money as a donor is willing to give but cannot give directly to a candidate. Super PACs can receive money from anywhere, including foreign governments, companies, and private individuals. The Super PACS must spend the donations on individual funds, such as commercials, flyers, and phone calls, without the influence of the candidates. As money flows in from donators, the politicians pass legislation to achieve what businesses and individuals want. Figure 1 above helps clarify the influence

Lawmakers have made several attempts to control how much money is allowed into elections during the many different time periods of American history. The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, also known as the McCain-Feingold Act did attempt to limit the amounts of money in

The political campaign environment in the United States changed in 2010 with the allowance of unlimited independent expenditures by outside entities in elections. The courts’ decisions in Citizens United and SpeechNow.org further increases Americans’ concerns regarding an undue influence of money in politics. This, coupled with increasing polarization and congressional gridlock in the U.S. House of Representatives, promotes skepticism of the political process. Polarization and gridlock create perceptions that representatives do not represent the average voter preferences but represent big-moneyed interests (Briffault, 2011; Gilbert and Aiken, 2015) and donors, who are more ideologically extreme than the average voter (Barber, 2014). Given

Redefining bribery would go a long way toward preventing campaign contributions from corrupting the political system. Defining bribery as any form of contribution that is connected directly or indirectly to influencing votes and public policy is imperative. Other suggestions that might help include complete anonymity on donations or complete transparency where all donors are known and can’t hide behind PACs. Term limits and outlawing earmarks would also help reduce the absurd amount of campaign contributions that are connected to unethical political influence. Finally, a limit on government spending, as well as a limit on debt and deficits, would perhaps plug up the open flood gates of the public Treasury at both the federal and state level. Only allowing tax payer money to be spent on that which is constitutional could also help bring the spending problem under control. Unfortunately, no amount of laws and limits can prevent corruption by someone who is determined to corrupt the

With these people lobbying to government officials and congressman both democrat and republican in order to try to make a change in society so more than the top 1% are controlling our government.