It occured to me the other day that one very effective way of controlling the abuses in the public office campaign system in the US might very well be the curtailing of on office holder campaigning for others.

To be honest I don't have a problem with the notion that the use of someone's money can be analogous to free speech. I would like to think that if I had a million dollars to give to a candidate that I believed in I would be free to do so. (I know this is simplistic - every time campaign finance is relegislated my example may or may not be legal)

In all of this though the one thing which is in common among all of the abuses we see is that incumbants or sitting politicians spend their time (read taxpayers) and money (read my tax funds) traveling around and campaining for others they want to see in office. This is just plain wrong. My tax funds should not be used to fly George Bush (insert current sitting president, senator, etc) anywhere where he can be drawing a salary and spending my tax money to campaign for someone I would vote against. In effect this means that those who vote for a candidate are rewarded twice when their candidate wins and are penalized twice when their candidate loses.

This strikes me as extemely unfair and flies in the face of how we are taught in our youth about how the government should work.

12/11/02:10:52:34 AM PST