Before the left uses the Easley scandal of the day to rev up the call for "Welfare for Politicians", also laughingly called voter-owned elections, they should take a deep breath. The Easley story is not about using existing campaign laws to an advantage, if proven to be true, it is about violating EXISTING campaign law and about personal enrichment. As many politicians before him, it appears that Easley aspired to a lifestyle that his income as an elected official would not support. Enter "friends" all to happy to help him live that lifestyle and throw in taxpayer financed aircraft and security to make life that much easier.
Planes, trips, land, home renovations are not the stuff of campaigns, they are the ingredients in an all too typical story of greed and corruption.
Back to the voter-owned elections – I called that laughable because whoever controls the money controls the politicians. In the method the left is proposing the government will control that money which means that government will control the elections. That does not sound like voter-owned to me. It sounds like politician-owned. Before my words are misused remember that "legally" (Easley excluded) any one individual can only donate a maximum of $8,000 over one election cycle (primary and general). If an election raises and spends $8,000,000 do the math. The influence any one individual or PAC can have on an election is very limited, but when government is the source of almost all of your money – BIG IMPACT. Besides, voter-owned elections don't work.
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