Congress has recently engaged in another flurry of activity over
ampaign-finance reform. Yet, congressmen never ask a fundamental question:
Why shouldn’t people be free to do whatever they want with their own money,
including donating whatever amounts they want to political candidates? The
usual answer that congressmen give is: “That type of system would make us
crooked and corrupt and we don’t want to be crooked and corrupt.”
But there’s another much more likely reason: Congressmen know that limits on
the amount of campaign contributions protect incumbents from competition
because their position, power, and influence are already worth millions of
dollars in a political campaign.
Another fundamental question is: Why do people even wish to donate their
hard-earned money to congressional candidates? The answer is: In order to
receive the special, privileged benefits of the paternalistic welfare state
and regulated society. Congressmen know that when government has the power
to dole out either goodies (subsides, grants, welfare, and tax breaks) or
baddies (regulations and increased taxes) to people, people will have the
incentive to pay to receive the goodies or to avoid receiving the baddies.
The ultimate answer to campaign-finance reform, then, lies in restrictions
on federal government power: Repeal the national income tax (and abolish the
IRS), prohibit government from being in the charity business (dismantle
socialistic, paternalistic welfare-state and regulatory programs), and leave
people free to do whatever they want with their own money. After, all isn’t
that what freedom and America were once all about?
