Monday, July 29, 2024

The Will of the People

 




The Will of the People

Kamala's campaign has received an astonishing $200 million since her coronation. So it has been with money in politics and so it will always be. Do people think this kind of money is put in as a sort of detergent, trying to clean up what it can? Or is it what it appears, a powerful influence that can overturn the results of months of a voting primary in a day.

As an unsuccessful candidate for her party’s nomination in 2008, and accepting her party’s nomination in 2016, Hillary Clinton wanted to “get money out of politics.” But also in 2016 she overcame her aversion to money and outspent Trump 3 to 1. The progressive aspiration is to remove private money from politics.

This would extend government’s domination of society to politics — to the debate about the composition of government. The maximum progressive aim is to remove voluntary political contributions from politics and restrict candidates to spending money that government extracts from voters by taxation. The overwhelming majority of voters — this we know — will not voluntarily pay for politics.

Every year, Americans can check a box on their tax returns, thereby giving $3 (without increasing their tax liabilities) to fund the presidential campaigns of nominees who agree not to accept other money. In 2023, only 3.35 percent of tax filers checked the box.

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