The Psychology of Public Campaign Finance

Paterson Says No to Public Campaign Financing For Now

ALBANY, NEW YORK Governor David Paterson threw cold water on reform advocate’s efforts to advance public campaign finance reform, saying with the worsening fiscal situation, it’s not the time to provide public money.

Advocates for the public financing of campaigns were in Albany to promote a bill that would provide public dollars to candidates running for office. The bill had been previously sponsored in the legislature by Governor David Paterson, when he was a Senator. But Governor Paterson… says he now thinks the time is not right for public financing of campaigns, given the state’s financial problems. Paterson says he’s already trying to persuade the legislature to cut the budget.

” I’m not going to add another $50 to $60 million dollars on to it by saying, ‘by the way, all of you have got to tighten your belts but we have to have public financing because I don’t want to tighten my belt’,” Paterson said.

Paterson says as soon as the economy stabilizes, he’ll once again be an advocate for the public financing of campaigns.

It seems to me that one of the challenges of balancing the state budget will be the pressure from special interests to preserve their advantages. And, I am only guessing but, the total amount of special interest expectations are a lot more than the cost of publicly financed elections. The whole notion behind separating legislators from special interests is to allow more objective and open minded deliberation of the best use of public funds. Isn’t this the essence of the aphorism “penny wise and pound foolish”

Also this helps advance consideration for a funding source that is not coming all from general taxes. Perhaps tapping the media companies for a special supplemental tax since they are the ultimate beneficiaries of most campaign spending.