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Comment by Pxtl | Hacker News Reader

In Canada we used to have something called the "Per Vote Subsidy".

Every political party got $2 of taxpayer money per-vote, per year.

It was, sadly, killed by the Conservative government (along with corporate donors) to prioritize an individual-fundraising-oriented system like you have in the USA.

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> In Canada we used to have something called the "Per Vote Subsidy". Every political party got $2 of taxpayer money per-vote, per year.

We have that in the US as well. It has existed since Watergate (1976). In 2008, Obama became the first candidate to opt out of the system, despite an earlier pledge to use them (McCain, his opponent, did not - he used public funds).

Amusingly, Romney said that he'd prefer to use public funds, but the reason that he did not (in 2012) is that Obama did not, and he believed he couldn't be competitive against an incumbent president who would potentially be spending three times as much as he would be legally permitted to[0][1][2].

The system still exists, for any candidate willing to use it. Though I would not be surprised if McCain became the last candidate to take advantage of it. After 2008, no candidate who wants to be competitive will take public funds if their opponent isn't as well, and that's unlikely to be the case for both candidates in a race simultaneously.

[0] Accepting public funds comes with limits on total spending

[1] http://www.politico.com/blogs/politico-now/2012/08/romney-ab...

[2] And frankly, he was right - ultimately, he spent about the same amount as Obama did. If he'd been limited to the amounts that public financing would have restricted him to, he'd have lost in a landslide.

Is the money/opt-out party-wide or is it tied to a specific candidate for a specific office. When you say "Obama" and "Romney" are you talking about them in their role as leading the entire party in the election or just their individual presidential runs?

> Is the money/opt-out party-wide or is it tied to a specific candidate for a specific office. When you say "Obama" and "Romney" are you talking about them in their role as leading the entire party in the election or just their individual presidential runs?

It's for the candidate in the presidential race. Though that comparison makes less sense between the US and Canada, since the latter has a parliamentary system, which the US does not. Both the US and Canada have political parties, but the nature of the roles of political parties are very different, in terms of how they interact with the system.

If the US did what you're suggesting (provide money to parties, not to candidates from the two leading parties), it would have a very different effect. One could make the argument that it would be better, but it wouldn't really be the same as Canada doing it, because the political systems in which those policies exist are very different.

It's not enough to control the funding, you have to control the political speech. Basically, candidates would get fixed slots of tv and radio time to spread their message, and all other political speech would be forbidden. Otherwise money can dominate the conversation as it does with the pacs. However, such a thing could never be done in the US due to the core belief that free speech is a fundamental right that cannot be curtailed.

> It's not enough to control the funding, you have to control the political speech. Basically, candidates would get fixed slots of tv and radio time to spread their message, and all other political speech would be forbidden. Otherwise money can dominate the conversation as it does with the pacs.

So you would prevent candidates from tweeting, or posting on Reddit, or updating their personal blog?

I remember my co-workers at the time thought that it was a brilliant move that Obama opted-out and defeated Mccain because he wasn’t limited by funds.

Now that we have Republican candidates using this to their full advantage, it needs to be stopped.

It needs to be stopped not because it's a different party, but because of who is donating the money. In the Obama campaign his fundraising records were set by small, individual donors. The GOP on the other hand is using a few mega donors (along with candidates like Clinton). This kind of unlimited funding from a couple hundred people is what should scare every democracy-loving person.

Edit: I write this as a nominal Clinton supporter here, so I really feel my opinion is unbiassd here.

> It needs to be stopped not because it's a different party, but because of who is donating the money. In the Obama campaign his fundraising records were set by small, individual donors The GOP on the other hand is using a few mega donors (along with candidates like Clinton)

It's not so simple.

First of all, it's hard for us to accurately compare 2008 and 2016, because there's a lot of data about the 2016 race that won't be released for a while. On top of that, the way data is broken down has changed, so not all of the buckets are 1-1 comparable. That said, most (53%) of Obama's money came from donations of over $200, and almost a third (27%) came from donations of $2,300 or more.[0]. In January, 95% of Clinton's money came from donors under $100.

You can say that we need to look at PACs as well. But actually, most PACs are still limited in the amount of money they can accept per person as well. It's only independent-expenditure-only committees that can take unlimited contributions. Even then, you'd be surprised how little money they actually raise. For example, only 25% of pro-Clinton money went to PACs, and that's counting all PACs, including ones subject to contribution limits[2].

Also, I'm not sure what you mean by 'candidates like Clinton' - in the presidential race, there's only one candidate who's not in the GOP and not Clinton. Is that meant to be a comment about Sanders?

[0] http://www.factcheck.org/2008/07/average-campaign-contributi...

[1] http://time.com/4208386/hillary-clinton-fundraising-bernie-s...

[2] http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/elections/electio...

"It needs to be stopped not because it's a different party, but because of who is donating the money. In the Obama campaign his fundraising records were set by small, individual donors. The GOP on the other hand is using a few mega donors (along with candidates like Clinton)."

So, the Democratic Party then too?

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