State Funding of Political Parties

[The Gaffer]

Should political parties receive funding from the public purse?

As we know, politicians are in hock to those who support them financially. Democracy, and public confidence in politicians, is undermined by the perception that they are flogging political influence in return for cash (or loans, as most recently came to light in the UK).

So, state funding would ensure that they do not have to go cap in hand to whatever corporate interests are willing to buy influence.

http://www.redpepper.org.uk/natarch/...y-funding.html

[Wayfarer]

No.

1) Any time political parties are allowed to receive government (federal or state), that places the control of the purse-strings in the hands of the winner. In the end you can't out-spend the government, which I think is one factor contributing that to the excessive rate of incumbent re-election.

2) Politicians are inherently no better than lobbies or corporations or unions or whatever. If you expect someone to go along with a private interest who gives them funding, isn't it just common sense to expect them to do the same for congress?

3) The 'public purse,' as you say, is taxpayer money. Taxpayers are quite capable of choosing who to support financially - as witnessed by the huge amounts of cash both parties rake in in donations. They don't need any help.

4) The government has no self control. The party in power would continue to vote themselves more and more campaign dollars, funded through taxation, to the point that the challenger couldn't compete.

Generally, the more power the government has the less power individuals are going to have - what is needed is to make politicians more accountable to anybody other than themselves. They already have the power to re-draw districts so as to ensure themselves safe seats in congress - now you want to expand their power to fund a campaign with my money? No way.

[Spock]

The point is moot, no pun intended, as we have laws which state who, how much, etc. can give both to parties and candidates. The problem lies with PAC's.

[Nurvingiel]

Great post Wayfarer. Some of your points are US only (in Canada, you can't redraw districts for example).

In Canada, we do have government funding for all political parties. Any party who gets more than 5% of the popular vote gets $2 per vote received, as funding for their campaign for the next election.

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this though. Independent candidates never get this funding, for example. (Though sometimes they do with their seat.)

Parties are also allowed to receive private donations, but there is a maximum any one person or group is allowed to donate, to eliminate parties being indebted to donors (hopefully).

On the one hand, government funding keeps the parties from relying on large donations. On the other hand, why should tax dollars be used to fund campaigns which, while they do inform voters of candidates' existence, largely do nothing.

Personally, I don't really want my tax dollars going to the Liberals' and Conservatives' stupid TV ads, and the Green Party doing squat.

Spock, what are PACs?

[Jonathan]

Should political parties receive funds from the public purse? I'd have to say yes.

Then of course there would have to be lots and lots of regulations. I think some of what Wayfie said could be avoided with some good regulations and as Nurv said, not all of that even applies to political systems outside the US.

It is my belief that helping people to start their own parties is a contribution to democracy and one way to encourage that is through state funding. Very small sums would suffice I think.

[The Gaffer]

Firstly, a plea for no jargon. Can we spell out what we mean if we're posting some stuff that other people might not have heard about?

Second, yeah, that was a rather nice summary of the problems posted by Wayfarer.

There are also the minutiae of how people qualify and how it's regulated as you touched on Nurv.

I am instinctively against the idea, for all the reasons above, but as time goes on it is becoming more and more clear to me that political parties do NOT reflect the will of the people, but of big business. This seems to be leading us towards a fascist-lite corporate state, where the masses are totally disengaged from the political process and treated like mushrooms (you know, kept in the dark and fed on ****). I think we're a long way from that now, but I think that's the direction the US and the UK are heading.

Just thinking about Wayfarer's reasons again:

1) Clearly, this would have to be regulated. Are there examples of winners abusing their positions like this.
2) Not quite sure what this means.
3) But influence is directly proportional to wealth, under the current model. Maybe that's OK, but it's not democracy. The model which I think Nurv outlined was one where there is a cap (i.e. maximum amount) on individual donations to political parties, and the state matches that donation or membership fees of each individual.

Thus, the "state funding" is still dependent on individuals' choices. The end result is that the parties have to attract more people to join them in order to get more funding (as opposed to sucking up to rich people, as they currently do).

4) The funding mechanism would prevent that.

It's the last point that is most depressing, and I guess it reflects one of the greatest differences between US thinking and European thinking. A stronger state SHOULD mean greater influence for the people, as it is implementing the people's will as mandated in an election. A weaker state means less influence for the people, because the state allows corporations to run the show, motivated purely by their own profits.

[Nurvingiel]

Sorry if I used any jargon Gaffer. What exactly is jargon, anyway?

The last part of my post was complaining about the campaigns of three political parties who received state funding. I thought all their campaigns were rubbish, and therefore a waste of tax dollars.

The Liberals, Conservatives, and the NDP too all ran silly, accusatory TV ads. The Green party didn't do anything, much to my disappointment. If anyone needed to use state funding effectively to get the word out, it would have been them.

Anyway, that's a little off-topic.

Originally Posted by The Gaffer

Second, yeah, that was a rather nice summary of the problems posted by Wayfarer.

There are also the minutiae of how people qualify and how it's regulated as you touched on Nurv.

Some of Wayfarer's points apply more to the US. I don't know about Britain, but incumbent re-election, AFAIK, isn't a problem here. (By which I mean, challengers always have a chance to win.)

My points were describing the Canadian way to allocate funds, but other countries could adopt those regulations.

[The Gaffer]

So how does it work in Canada, Nurv? Is it entirely based on votes, and the money reserved for election campaigns, or is there some sort of membership based subsidy?

[brownjenkins]

I'd prefer to see money taken out of the election process entirely. Only allow registered voters to contribute a small sum per calendar year (maybe $100). Don't allow corporations or any other organization to contribute (including political parties), or even allow the candidates themselves to contribute to their own campaign any more than any other individual ($100 per year).

This would drastrically reduce spending on political campaigns to the point where in-person appearances, hoping for free news coverage, would be the only outlet for a candidate. TV ads, which I think do absolutely nothing positive for the political process, would cease to exist.

Less people would probably vote as well, but those who did would be more likely to use the 'net and other sources to look deeply into each candidate. Basically, only those who truely cared about the process would vote and not all the other people who just vote because of some snazzy hotbutton non-issue brought up in TV advertising.

[Last Child of Ungoliant]

on the one hand, i say that if every party received exactly the same amount of funding then i dont see a major problem, however i would also say that with schools, hospitals, emergency services etc in the state they are, i think there are much better uses for governemnt funds (ie my taxes when i work)

[Huorn]

State funding of political parties is a bad idea. One is surely to get favoured over another. Then the wishes of the voters will get ignored. I think the wishes of the votors are already getting ignored as it is.

[Earniel]

I always thought state party funding was in theory a good idea, if some measurements of control are taken and limits were set.

Although all what our parties seem to be doing with it is whining and trying to take it away from other political parties because those are supposedly racist, undemocratic, whatever else is 'not cool' at the moment. Aaah, my dear Belgian politicians, how you still manage to embarass yourselves and the rest of us in the process...

[Gwaimir Windgem]

I say that if all parties got equal funding, it would not be bad, and perhaps even a good thing, as it would give a "head start" to small parties that are not able to raise much funds themselves, as they would be less likely to appeal either to liberal social elite or to money-grabbing oil barons.

However, if there were party funding, it would be rather unlikely that it would be equal.

[The Gaffer]

One system I've seen proposed is where you are only allowed individual donations, up to a maximum amount per person. The state gives matching funding for individual memberships. So, the more members a party has the more money it gets: i.e. it's not supposed to be "equal", just fairer.

The idea is that this would force parties to engage with people much better, and make individuals more involved in the political process.

My second biggest worry with this (after potential abuses) is that it will make all the parties try to appeal to the lowest common denominator. However, they do that anyway...

It seems like a lot of the weaknesses of the idea are things which already happen. How else could we make our political masters do what we want instead of what their big business cronies want?

[brownjenkins]

Take money out of the equation entirely. Imagine if candidates weren't allowed to spend money period? The only ways they'd get attention, and thus a name, and thus votes, would be to actually do something important and newsworthy. And the only people who would vote would be those willing to take the time to reseach issues and candidates.

The problem with our system is that money is a part of the equation. To such an extent that, more often than not, the person who spends the most money wins.

[The Gaffer]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

Take money out of the equation entirely. Imagine if candidates weren't allowed to spend money period? The only ways they'd get attention, and thus a name, and thus votes, would be to actually do something important and newsworthy. And the only people who would vote would be those willing to take the time to reseach issues and candidates.

The problem with our system is that money is a part of the equation. To such an extent that, more often than not, the person who spends the most money wins.

Wow. That would be great. No more crap getting dumped through your door, no more party political broadcasts and, best of all, spin doctors on the dole.