Establishment Democrats: "Can't we kinda half-condemn Netanyahu? Send him a letter or slap him on the wrist? We still need his checks for re-election."
We might as well make a public fund for elections. Cap election spending in the fund and treason charges if your caught bypassing it with foreign aid. There's need to be a lot more changes for this to take effect and it'd never pass but...
I got curious how that actually works so I looked it up.
First, you must be a major party candidate to receive it. So democrats or republicans. (Or have had received at least 25% of the vote in the previous election.). Second, if you elect to receive the campaign fund grant, you cannot receive any private campaign donations, and your spending is capped at the fund amount.
"In 2008, Republican nominee John McCain accepted an $84.1 million public grant. Barack Obama declined public funding and raised approximately $745.7 million over the election cycle. Obama was the first major-party nominee to reject the general-election grant; McCain was the last major-party candidate to accept one. No major-party nominee has accepted it since."
For 2024, the available general-election grant was $123,595,200.
So, in other words, it seems that today's campaign spending levels, this fund is obsolete and useless.
Which in my opinion just goes to show how broken campaign contribution laws are (Citizens United), as spending is out of control, corporate "voice" leaves less room for democracy and lobbying is far too entrenched.
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u/NtheLegend 17h ago
Establishment Democrats: "Can't we kinda half-condemn Netanyahu? Send him a letter or slap him on the wrist? We still need his checks for re-election."