The American Spectator : Brief Thoughts From Think Tanks

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Books in Review

Brief Thoughts From Think Tanks

By Tom Bethell from the September 2009 issue

A sampling of new offerings.

(Page 2 of 2)

The McCain-Feingold Act of 2002 was one of the worst pieces of legislation in American history, no thanks to George Bush for signing it. It plainly violates the First Amendment, protects incumbents (and was surely designed to do so), and undermines the political parties. Our campaign finance laws are candidate- centered, the authors write, while political parties are severely restricted in their ability to finance their candidates' campaigns. Because the system was designed to reduce corruption and undue influence, "a candidate-centered fundraising system seems, to say the least, rather odd."

Why so? "It places the candidates and office holders in exactly the position they should not be occupying -- as supplicants, seeking financial support from those who are trying to influence them." (That's on page one, but there are quotes of similar quality throughout the book.)

Of course, there was a reason for structuring the campaign finance system that way: "It is highly favorable to the incumbents who designed it."

Enough said. By 5-4, the Supreme Court upheld the law in 2003. Now that O'Connor and Souter have left, the new court just might reverse that bad decision, even without an assist from Sotomayor.

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About the Author

Tom Bethell is a senior editor of The American Spectator and author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science, The Noblest Triumph: Property and Prosperity Through the Ages, and most recently Questioning Einstein: Is Relativity Necessary? (2009).

Letter to the Editor View all comments (4) | Leave a comment

Galen| 9.16.09 @ 9:54AM

To repeat myself. The founding fathers did not mean that the first ammendment applied to political speech. They wanted to safeguard nude dancing

Roy| 9.23.09 @ 8:57AM

If the problem is that "nobody knows how to value" something, a great way to exacerbate that problem is to introduce a tremendous amount of uncertainty as to whether the government will buy it at an above-market price(or bail out anyone with the asset, which amounts to the same thing). Oh wait, that's what the government did.

Dixie Pixie| 9.23.09 @ 4:07PM

Galen:
So the average stripper has more and better political speech rights than a major corporation such as IBM. This sounds about right as the average stripper pays more in taxes than the average major corporation.

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