- Sep 4, 2005
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That's one of those aspects that bigger than either party, and is currently baked into the system itself.Committing felonies by using taxpayer money to influence a presidential election is a misuse of power that shows real contempt for the American people and democratic elections.
I completely understand why people are unhappy with that arrangement, but invoking that sad reality about our political system in a one-directional fashion only undermines the credibility of the complaint, it doesn't strengthen it.
The US has direct public funding of Presidential campaigns through the "Presidential Election Campaign Fund", which is just direct funding of campaigns (which, campaigns are by their very nature, processes that seek to influence elections)
And that doesn't even delve into the litany of 501(c)(3) orgs that receive government grants and tax breaks, and try to influence elections via their 501(c)(4) "sister affiliates"
Those organizations use their "non-political activities :wink wink:" as a slush fund to funnel money to their sister organizations that do directly influence elections, or they claim the vague status as "issue advocacy", which is a crock, because everyone know which issue positions align with which party.
"I'm just advocating for pro-gun, pro-life, pro-Traditional marriage causes, but I'm not endorsing any candidate"
"I'm just advocating for pro-LGBT, pro-environment, pro-Minimum wage increase, but I'm certainly not encouraging you to vote for one candidate or the other"
Right....
While I think you and I have lots of points of agreement on certain issues (based on our posting histories), I'm not a fan of "throwing the book" at one side for something that's basically ubiquitous in our flawed system.
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