Too Much Money!

Elections are no longer about the country fully agreeing with all of the candidate’s ideals, but instead it’s unfortunately a means of “buying out” an election. As of November 3rd,2011, the population of the United States of America is now 312,547,512; how would these people feel if they understood that their president was aiming to spend three times that this coming election? Who would possibly support this vast amount of spending on campaigns for simply gaining popularity to keep in power? There is just too much money being spent for things that really can be cut down, or even cut off completely. “Super PAC’s” allow this wrong use of money to happen, the wrongly used funds are spent on things that their necessity is debatable, and the elections in the United States of America depend too much on what could be a major source of funding for the entire economy.

Federal laws dating all the way back to 1947, and even state laws that were from before that, made restrictions on corporations so they could not directly fund political activity from their general treasuries (Braven 1). During that time period until the past years, they found ways around the restrictions; letting individuals of the company give money to political ventures and be completely legal in doing so, however… due to a Supreme Court ruling in 2010 stating that the restrictions were unconstitutional, businesses and unions are now able to spend freely on commercials for or against candidates, and so the birth of term “Super Political Action Committees,” or “Super PACs” took place. Obama, who had just spent $750 million last election, said it gave “a green light to a new stampede of special-interest money in our politics,” particularly “big oil, Wall Street banks, health-insurance companies and the other powerful interests,” (qtd. In Braven 1) all of which we are having problems with now! Last year, oil was the highest it has been in history, Wall Street has been being protested, and health insurance still continues to become more expensive. “Super PACs,” although proven constitutionally legal, have become an economic and political problem. Sure, large portions of donations to political parties aren’t from large businesses, but there are select few who do have a lot of money, and they donate a few million to a party. Even that shouldn’t be overlooked. The problem is that the campaigner has too much money to begin with! Adding on to the pile only provides more spending on large corporations such as certain television companies and oil companies for all the flying they do.