House votes to end public financing of presidential races

[sinkingfeeling]

Source: usatoday.com

The U.S. House voted this afternoon to end the $3 checkoff on Americans' income tax forms that help underwrite presidential campaigns.

The Republican-backed measure, which passed 235-190, would end the decades-old system of providing taxpayer assistance to presidential candidates and political conventions. The savings would be applied to deficit reduction. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Gregg Harper, R-Miss., also would eliminate a commission that provides election assistance to states.

The measure faces dim prospects in the Democratic-controlled Senate, where a companion measure has languished all year. President Obama and a coalition of 11 watchdog groups also have opposed the bill.



Read more: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/onpolitics/post/2011/12/house-kills-public-campaign-financing/1

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Yes, why would we want to get money out of campaigns? Or have election assistance?

[RC]

1. They want to make it cheaper to buy the elections.

[freshwest]

9. Well, the gloves are off now... No more pretense... Good for the narrow DP Senate majority.

IDK if they'll still be in office next year.

Lot of that Citizen United $$$ in the process already...

[No Elephants]

2. I thought money was speech? Why is the Rethug House limiting my right to speak?

ETA Seriously, are they not embarrassed to this?

[Yupster]

20. No presidential candidate is going to accept the matching funds anymore

so it was kind of superfluous.

Last election McCain accepted the money with their limits. Obama turned the money down and was therefore able to outspend MCCain way more than 2x1. No one is going to follow McCain's losing proposition of getting outspent so the federal funding is yesterday.

Last election if we remember Obama promised to accpet the money and abide by the caps and then changed his mind. McCain could hardly follow suit as the law limiting the amounts was named after him. The penalty for not agreeing was that supposedly you'd suffer public relations disasters for not accepting the limits, but that didn't happen, so no one would be dumb enough to abide by the limits going forward.

[No Elephants]

24. You are wrong--and selective--on the facts. Obama did not promise unconditionally to accept

public funds.

Obama turned down the funds because McCain was not abiding by the rules. Among other things, McCain violated election laws by using his wife's resources as well as public funds.

McCain did not lose because of insufficient funding anyway.

All that aside, however, none of what you said justifies what the Republican House did. If no one accpets it, no one acceptss. That, however, is very different from abolishing the fund.

Rethugs like to sell themselves as the big advocates of free speech and also of money as speech. They've now shown their hypocrisy.

But, thanks for the attempted defense of this wretched action by the Rethug house.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

3. The Republicans are giving us a preview

of everything they would do starting in 2013 if they hold the House, win the Senate and WH next year. We should all be paying close attention IMHO.

The fact that a Democratic Senate and/or President Obama is not going to approve much, if anything of their *agenda* should serve to highlight some stark differences between the two parties IMHO.

[SkyDaddy7]

8. You are 100% correct...Look at their...

potential pick for POTUS & what he wants to do!

Folks who think Gingrich would be a push over in the general election need to wake up! His skeletons are old & most Americans could care less! Most of all Americans like AUTHORITARIANS like Gingrich...He is SCARY!

[Proud Liberal Dem]

11. Gingrich IS scary. Very definitely!

But it's even more than that bothers me. He is UGLY. I'm not talking about his appearance but rather his contemptuous condescending attitude towards the 99% in general. His remarks to the OWS protesters was particularly mean and nasty but that's who this guy is. His nastiness reminds me of somebody like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, et. al. :puke:

I don't think that he would contrast well with President Obama and if he were the nominee he would probably galvanize people to vote for President Obama but the thought that he might well be the GOP nominee is pretty scary to think about.
:scared:

[high density]

22. Gingrich wants to kill the CBO so the GOP can make even more stuff up

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/29/gingrich-and-the-destruction-of-congressional-expertise/

On Nov. 21, Newt Gingrich, who is leading the race for the Republican presidential nomination in some polls, attacked the Congressional Budget Office. In a speech in New Hampshire, Mr. Gingrich said the C.B.O. “is a reactionary socialist institution which does not believe in economic growth, does not believe in innovation and does not believe in data that it has not internally generated.”
...
For example, Republicans frequently assert that tax cuts, especially for the rich, generate so much economic growth that they lose no revenue. This theory has been thoroughly debunked, most recently by the tax cuts of the George W. Bush administration, which, according to C.B.O., reduced revenues by $3 trillion. Nevertheless, conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation (where I worked in the 1980s) still peddle the snake oil that the Bush tax cuts paid for themselves.

Mr. Gingrich has long had special ire for the C.B.O. because it has consistently thrown cold water on his pet health schemes, from which he enriched himself after being forced out as speaker of the House in 1998. In 2005, he wrote an op-ed article in The Washington Times berating the C.B.O., then under the direction of Mr. Holtz-Eakin, saying it had improperly scored some Gingrich-backed proposals. At a debate on Nov. 5, Mr. Gingrich said, “If you are serious about real health reform, you must abolish the Congressional Budget Office because it lies.”

[No Elephants]

25. Children are afraid of clowns--and also of people who want them to work as school janitors.

[jwirr]

13. Absolutely agree - the hand writing is on the wall.

[orpupilofnature57]

4. Now that the Supreme Court gave corporations Carte Blanche buying...

they don't need our measly $3.00.

[rhett o rick]

5. What savings?? to go to deficit reduction. Assholes. FoxHoles. nm

[valerief]

6. Corporate owned elections only now. Friggin' thieving bastards. nt

[Scuba]

7. Little known provision: from this point forward, only people ...

... named Koch, Langone or Singer will be allowed to donate toward any political campaign.

[canuckledragger]

10. I believe what this does..

..is make it that much harder for anyone who wants to run that doesn't have deep pockets or corporate funding for their campaigns

[jwirr]

12. My 5 year old great grand daughter was trying to walk backward

in the grocery store today. I see she isn't the only one with this idea. But then she is only 5 they are supposed to be adults.

[No Elephants]

26. Thing is, they not only walk backward, they get about half the U.S. to follow them.

[AlbertCat]

14. How about voting to end ALL funding of Presidential Elections.

We could really save some money then, doncha think?

[No Elephants]

27. Brilliant, but the Rethugs would probably find a way to circumvent it anyway.

[sofa king]

15. ...Which is why we all need to thank Harry Reid and the Dem-controlled Senate.

Because how much of the hateful bile vomited forth from the Republican-controlled House has actually passed in the Senate this year? None of it.

[No Elephants]

28. Maybe we even have to thank the dreaded filibuster rules because I bet some so-called Dems

have voted with the Rethugs.

Thing is, in the long run, I'd rather do away with the filibuster rules.

They work to halt legislation, not to reform or pass legislation.

And that works for Republicans, who want no change unless it is to go backward.

Worst case, let the public see just how bad their policies are for the 99% and we'll get another 40 years of Democratic ownership of Congress.

As it is, they get their way and they take no responsibility for it because, after all, the Dems are supposed in control of D.C. right now, given their supposed control of the Senate and the Oval Office.

[sofa king]

33. The problem is, we need the filibuster more than they.

Anything you and I have left today is thanks to eight years of clever delay in the Senate during the Bush years. The Republicans still screwed us all right good, but Social Security, veterans' benefits, public assistance funding, alternative energy and EPA funding, and a thousand other things that prop up our creaking society were saved only by the filibuster. It was our last cornerback able to make a play as evil romped down the sideline toward the end zone as all the other defenders fell to blocks-in-the-back.

And we'll need it again, too, because evil only gets flagged and sidelined for a play; it never gets kicked out of the game because it owns the game.

The Democratic plan--pretty clearly, the President's own plan--is working with that in mind. The way to defeat the filibuster is to win a supermajority in the Senate, and with only ten Republican Senators up for reelection this time, there's almost no chance to get that in 2013. So the plan is to make the best of the modest gains we can make this time, so that we can lock down the Senate in 2015.

Once that happens, we finally get to see what this President wanted to do in his first two years. It better work, because by 2016 the Republicans will have found a new way to steal it all again.

[blueclown]

16. We don't need to end public financing - we must enhance it.

And while it is nice to have the apparent support of President Obama in the opposition to this terrible legislation, certainly his actions show that he is not as big a fan of public financing as it would seem. Why did he not take public financing in the 2008 elections? If public financing of presidential elections is ever eliminated, its obituary should be written because of the Fall 2008.

[Yupster]

21. Obama didn't accept public financing in 08 after he said he would for one good reason

He didn't want to.

He knew he could raise more if he wasn't hampered by the caps and he was pretty sure McCain would have to abide by the caps since he was the main architect of the law establishing the caps.

The extra money allowed Obama to greatly expand the field of states he was able to play in.

It probably won him Indiana and N Carolina since he wouldn't have used his dear resources for those longshot states if he had to follow the spending caps.

Would't have made a difference in the election though as Obama won by way over 100 electoral votes.

[No Elephants]

29. McCain was not abiding by the rules, so Obama had no obligation to accept public funding.

[No Elephants]

30. Obama's offer to accept public financing was contingent upon his opponent's doing the same.

McCain began violating the public financing rules during the primary and had complaints filed against him with the FEC, which, of course, did nothing under Bush. (It had vacancies, which prevented a quorum, and Bush nominated no one to fill the vacancies).

After complaints were filed, McCain then withdrew from the program and, apparently, in 2009, the FEC allowed him to get away with that.

[alfredo]

17. They are doing this to spite OWS.

[lindysalsagal]

18. Lie, cheat, steal, kill, blame, pollute, rewrite, fool, trick, abandon, neglect, ignore

the list goes on and on. There is no low they will refuse. I truly believe these people will put little old ladies by the side of the road, ruin the planet, enslave children...Anything to maintain their power and easy money.

It turns out, it wasn't Bush and Cheney- They just were the puppets for these immoral criminals.

[applegrove]

19. I'm so sorry America. I'm so sorry you are going through this. The GOP are a bunch of sick dogs.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

23. "You're going the wrong way!"

[lonestarnot]

31. K & R!

[Betty]

32. next step: a law allowing only corporations

and people with net worth over $10 million to donate.