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Here’s a letter to USA Today:
The headline of your Sept. 28 editorial reads “Who’s buying this election? Who knows? [2]”
I know. Incumbent politicians.
Not all of them will succeed in their shopping sprees, thankfully. But farm subsidies, tariffs, export assistance, funding for science, funding for the arts, funding for education, bloated military procurements, bailouts of Detroit and Wall Street, and politically directed ‘stimulus’ spending are just some of the expenditures – all of money taken from both present and future taxpayers – made by sitting politicians to buy the election. Reducing the amounts that private citizens spend of their own money to influence elections will only worsen the consequences of this detestable reality.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
My colleague Dan Klein responds: “Remembering HLM’s adage about campaign promises as an advance auction of stolen goods, it’s not clear that you should limit it to the incumbents.” Dan is correct.