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And that still doesn't solve many of the other problems with campaign finance.
For example, lets say you give every candidate a $50 million dollar limit to use for campaigning.
What's to then stop, say, Exxon from going out and putting out a commercial, not sponsored by a campaign, supporting a candidate? Or stop PETA? Or the NRA? Or a local group in your home town buying money to put an ad in the paper because they feel strong about a candidate?
Right, and I should have made mention of this. The problem is that the more money an organization has, the more "voice" they have in an election, but to say that they cannot promote or advertise is an obvious free speech issue. I would like to see some way to limit it so that organizations have the right to free speech, and can run adds, but that the more money they have, the more voice they have. Unfortunately, I am not smart enough to see a good way to do that. Would saying that no organization can spend more than X dollars on political advertising over the course of any year be legal? How would you stop them from spinning off small companies to get around such a law? It's a really tricky thing, and I don't have a good solution, except to say I do not like the status quo much.
I don't have a problem with your solution to candidate spending and would support such a plan.