I’m divided over the Supreme Court’s ruling the other day striking down campaign finance laws restricting corporate contributions to political campaigns.
\nOn the one hand, McCain-Feingold not only seems like exactly what its opponents say it is — an onerous suppression of free speech rights — but also doesn’t seem to have been particularly effective. Money in politics is like water going downhill: it’s going to find its way there no matter what. On the other hand, it’s dismaying to me that even more political power is going to accumulate in the hands of the wealthy, who will now be able to purchase a bigger and more powerful megaphone, especially in the waning days of elections. If you have enough money to spend, you can buy up a lot of advertising time on local TV and radio stations, and keep your opponent off the air.
\nWhat do you think? Because I’ve been traveling, I haven’t had time since the ruling came down to read the pro and con arguments, or to think this through. You don’t have that excuse!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’m divided over the Supreme Court’s ruling the other day striking down campaign finance laws restricting corporate contributions to political campaigns. On the one hand, McCain-Feingold not only seems like exactly what its opponents say it is — an onerous suppression of free speech rights — but also doesn’t seem to have been particularly effective.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-varia"],"yoast_head":"\n