laylamoheyeldin

No matter how regulated campaign funding is, the corporations and Political Action Committees and unions that contribute to campaigns will still have a sway over the candidate's political policy, which I believe is wrong and unfair to the American people. Because of private funding for campaigns, elected officials are able to create policy or take other action in order to benefit their wealthy donors, instead of in the best interest of the voters they are representing. I understand that there is quite possibly no real way to limit private funding for campaigns, because any previous limitations put in place have been worked around, like the creation of Super PACs, or found to be too restrictive on other individual liberties, like the case of The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act and Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.
A recent example of the murkiness surrounding the effects of private campaign funding on a candidate’s policy is a dinner former President Trump attended in April 2018. According to the New York Times, there were several attendees who later donated to Trump’s presidential campaign, using the dinner as an opportunity to advocate for their individual desires. For example, a billionaire who owns a steel-making company donated over $1.75 million to the campaign in order to influence Trump to allow tighter restrictions on steel imports and longer working hours for truck drivers. There are so many more examples of breaches of national trust in elected officials.
Therefore, I believe that private funding for political campaigns should be abolished. Instead, candidates should use the wealth of resources available to them in the modern age, such as the internet and social media, to campaign for free. Voters who are not frequent users of the internet can still learn about a candidate’s campaign from what the newspapers and television stations will report about the candidate’s online activities. Most elected officials already have an active presence on social media to advocate for their beliefs and policy, and already run a part of their campaigns online. Switching from private donors funding campaigns to candidates using the internet and social media as a campaign platform without any money exchanging hands will remove the responsibility candidates may feel to cater to the desires of their donors, and the uncertainty of American voters as to whether or not their interests will be valued if they do not donate to their candidate’s campaign.