Why Campaign Expenditures are Increasing: The Government is Getting Bigger

Research by John Lott reveals a somewhat obvious explanation to campaign contribution growth, touched on briefly in my testimony. Special interests spend millions to influence government because government is handing out billions to special interests.

While many think that limiting campaign contributions or taxpayer-financed campaigns will reduce the role of special interest - this is simply absurd. Such limits have not gotten special interests out of national politics, but only made it tougher to track. The way to reduce the influence of special interest is to reduce the size of government, pork-barrel spending and corporate welfare, and over-regulation which benefits special interests.

To use a recent quote from Mark Tapscott: You can have Big Government or you can have Open Government. But you can't have both.

Also read Dimitri Vassilaros' column in the Tribune Review on campaign finance reform. He cites our Policy Points on Campaign Finance. Vote in our poll here.