Is it fair to argue the money spent on U.S. midterm election ads could have been better spent on poverty, education, etc or is that money earmarked for political use only?
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Only presidential election candidates receive public funds to help with parts of the election process.
All other elections, which include those during midterms, are funded with private money. A certain campaign run by a candidate has limitations on how much money can be given by certain groups and how that money can be spent. However, a political action committee (PAC) is not subject to those funding and spending restrictions as long as they are *independent* and not working with the candidate (*wink wink*).
So to your question about if the money could be spent elsewhere. Yes, but it’s up to those private individuals and organizations to choose where their money goes, not the government.
It’s not really “earmarked” because it’s not a kind of spending like “military spending” or “education spending” that the government is paying for using tax dollars.
Political spending is (mostly) “private” money that politicians spend trying to get elected/reelected. It comes from “political donations” given by people/organizations to particular candidates, or political parties, or lobby groups, that they want to see win.
While most sane folks would argue that *entirely too much money is being spent in politics* it’s not quite fair to say that *”…this ad money could have been spent on X, Y, or Z…”* because it is not like those donors would have given that money to X, Y, or Z instead had there not been an election going on. Furthermore, political donations can’t just be used to buy whatever-the-candidate-wants (you’ll often hear of folks getting in trouble for misuse of campaign funds – to buy themselves a new yacht or something) so the candidate can’t just decide *”I want to spend $1M on charity rather than pay for my campaign ads.”* without getting in trouble.
No. That is not a good argument. The reason why money should not be in politics is because government in business and business in government are exactly the same mathematically with the same problems. Socialism/communism doesn’t work. When we allow private entities to interfere with democracy we allow people with means to have more of a vote do to psychological problems with human beings. If you are conservative, you know that communism/socialism is very bad. That is what happens when we allow money to lobby. If you are not conservative, you realize that large amounts of money equals power. Keeping money out of politics should be a bipartisan issue to protect our democracy. People I know that lobby look at me side ways when I lay it out for them, but it’s mathmatical clear as day.
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