Small-Donor Campaign Finance Proposal Is a Great Deal for Taxpayers

As we begin to debate the House Democrats’ landmark “For the People Act” (HR 1), here’s one pushback we might expect to see: The small-donor public matching system in the bill costs too much public money. It’s a standard argument that campaign finance reform opponents often make. But it only focuses only on the costs. It doesn’t take into account the benefits. A publicly funded campaign finance system will save taxpayers far more money than it costs them. It will pay for itself in more responsive and smarter public policy. As a simple comparison, let’s put the current Congress’s HR 1 up against that of the last Congress — Republicans’ massive tax bill. By most estimates, the tax bill’s 10-year cost will be $1.5 trillion (that’s trillion with a T). Some estimates put it closer to the $2 trillion mark, or even $2.3 trillion. And why so expensive? Well, the bill gave massive benefits to corporate executives and the very rich. As Republican Rep. Chris Collins said about the tax reform bill, “My donors are basically saying, ‘Get it done or don’t ever call me again.’” By one estimate, tax lobbyists donated $9.7 million in 2017. The tax bill was full of big and small wins for corporate lobbyists. This raises an obvious question: If Republican lawmakers hadn’t been so eager to please their big donors, would they have put together a different bill? Perhaps if they had been raising money from small donors in their districts, instead of raising money from lobbyists at Washington fundraisers and listening to very rich people complain about taxes being too high, their tax bill might actually have given most of the benefits to the middle class. Who knows?