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: On the party subsidy
The argument that cutting the party subsidy is about fairness to the taxpayer is complete B.S. unless you're talking about fair in proportion to how much taxes your paying (which to be fair is probably what they're all talking about).
With the subsidy, $2 per vote is given to that party provided they get a minimum % of the vote, for a grand total of ~$30M. I don't have stats, but I would guess based on the fact that I probably pay an average amount of taxes (seniors and the poor pay little to none), that means that about $2 of my tax dollars goes directly to the party that I voted for.
Now it's true then that voters who pay more taxes in this scheme do help subsidize the subsidy of the voters who pay little to none, but it's $2 / vote. (at this point, I wish I had stats on how many people don't pay taxes of the 15M who vote. I'll bet it's not a high %, since education is fairly strongly correlated to both numbers and therefore they will be pretty strongly correlated to each other)
But let's consider the alternative. Under the current election laws, an individual is allowed to donate up to $1,100 per year, BUT you get tax credits for this amount. So if someone donates the full $1,100 to the party of their choice they get almost $600 back as tax credits. i.e. if you can afford to give $500 to the party of your choice then the tax payers collectively chip in $600.
If this is the only means of political party financing, then for those people who can not afford to contribute $500 / year to a political party (like me, and all my friends), their tax dollars are exclusively going to the parties chosen by whoever can afford it. (And that's the current regime, some pundits are talking about raising those limits, and allowing corporate financing back in, which makes the unfairness much worse).
The subsidy was there to ensure that the choices of the poor were not handicapped for not pandering to the wealthy in order to be able to afford an election campaign.
If we assume that money matters in an election campaign, then the parliament that we get is at least somewhat related to how much money is available to the political parties.
Which means that by getting rid of the per vote subsidy, you no longer get the parliament you vote for, but you get the parliament you pay for.
Also, I would rather my political parties spend more time researching policy issues than fund raising. As I see it, that may be the primary problem with politics in the States: Politicians are constantly fund raising, leaving them little time to do the actual job they've been tasked with.
The argument that cutting the party subsidy is about fairness to the taxpayer is complete B.S. unless you're talking about fair in proportion to how much taxes your paying (which to be fair is probably what they're all talking about).
With the subsidy, $2 per vote is given to that party provided they get a minimum % of the vote, for a grand total of ~$30M. I don't have stats, but I would guess based on the fact that I probably pay an average amount of taxes (seniors and the poor pay little to none), that means that about $2 of my tax dollars goes directly to the party that I voted for.
Now it's true then that voters who pay more taxes in this scheme do help subsidize the subsidy of the voters who pay little to none, but it's $2 / vote. (at this point, I wish I had stats on how many people don't pay taxes of the 15M who vote. I'll bet it's not a high %, since education is fairly strongly correlated to both numbers and therefore they will be pretty strongly correlated to each other)
But let's consider the alternative. Under the current election laws, an individual is allowed to donate up to $1,100 per year, BUT you get tax credits for this amount. So if someone donates the full $1,100 to the party of their choice they get almost $600 back as tax credits. i.e. if you can afford to give $500 to the party of your choice then the tax payers collectively chip in $600.
If this is the only means of political party financing, then for those people who can not afford to contribute $500 / year to a political party (like me, and all my friends), their tax dollars are exclusively going to the parties chosen by whoever can afford it. (And that's the current regime, some pundits are talking about raising those limits, and allowing corporate financing back in, which makes the unfairness much worse).
The subsidy was there to ensure that the choices of the poor were not handicapped for not pandering to the wealthy in order to be able to afford an election campaign.
If we assume that money matters in an election campaign, then the parliament that we get is at least somewhat related to how much money is available to the political parties.
Which means that by getting rid of the per vote subsidy, you no longer get the parliament you vote for, but you get the parliament you pay for.
Also, I would rather my political parties spend more time researching policy issues than fund raising. As I see it, that may be the primary problem with politics in the States: Politicians are constantly fund raising, leaving them little time to do the actual job they've been tasked with.
