Cheerleading for Making You Support Candidates You Oppose

You can tell by reading her Chapel Hill News commentary about public financing of campaigns that Cristina Chenlo is an energized true believer.

But is she a true believer in freedom, or in government control?

I’m mystified as to why a person who urges her fellow citizens to “show them with true revolutionary spirit that at least in Chapel Hill our government is truly of the people, for the people and by the people” can think that forcing people to help fund candidates they oppose, and helping protect incumbents stay in office, is “revolutionary.” It is the opposite.

Chapel Hill liberals should be infuriated that their tax dollars will help a conservative tell voters why liberalism is a problem not a solution, and Chapel Hill conservatives (yes, there are a few) should be equally outraged that their tax dollars will help promote liberal spending and tax policies. And no, making both sides subsidize the opposition doesn’t somehow make this “fair.” It makes it bad for everybody.

JLF’s Daren Bakst provides a great explanation, in this commentary, of why taxpayer funded elections are incumbent protection systems — far from the “revolutionary” government Ms. Chenlo purports to support.

These taxpayer-financed systems also are incumbency protection schemes. For example, assume Candidate A decides against taking taxpayer dollars for her campaign. (I will refer to her as a traditional candidate.) Candidate B decides to take taxpayer dollars. (I will refer to her as a political welfare candidate.)

If Candidate A spends $5,000 beyond a threshold amount of money, $5,000 in “matching funds” would be provided to Candidate B. The whole point is to ensure that traditional candidates can’t spend more than the political welfare candidates.

When funding is equalized, it benefits incumbent candidates. There are many advantages to incumbency, such as name recognition, so it often requires additional money for a challenger to overcome these built-in advantages. When challengers can’t spend more than incumbents, they are far less likely to win.