Public Would Like To Limit Campaign Cash

As we know, extraordinarily large sums of money was spent by both parties in the last election, and it wasn't just in the presidential election. Huge sums were also spent in most Senate and House races. A lot of the expenditure was done by outside groups, because the Supreme Court allowed those groups to spend unlimited amounts of money -- with much of the donations being done in secret.

One proposal being put forward to stop this huge (and many times one-sided) spending on campaigns is to provide for public funding of all federal campaigns -- with candidates of both parties getting equal (and limited) funding. This public funding would solve some of the problems, but as the charts above show, the idea really hasn't caught on big with the voting public. While a majority of Democrats would support the idea (60%), a majority of Republicans would oppose it (54%) -- and both Independents and the general public are split on the issue.

This information comes from a recent Gallup Poll (taken on June 15th and 16th of 1,015 nationwide adults -- with a three point margin of error. As you can see, the poll shows that support for public financing of elections is less than overwhelming -- and with only marginal support for it, it is unlikely we will see Congress take up this idea anytime soon.

But that does not mean the public is happy with things as they are. The poll also asked respondents if they would support limiting the amount of money congressional candidates could raise and spend -- and the support for that was overwhelming. About 79% of the general public (4 out of 5 Americans) said they supported that, while only 19% said they opposed it.

Obviously, a huge majority of Americans think unlimited campaign spending is a bad idea, and they would like to find a way to limit it. They just haven't been convinced yet that public campaign financing is the best way to do it (probably because of a fear that it would be too costly and require taxes to be raised).

While support for public financing differs among political groups, the desire to control campaign funds raised and spent cuts across all political (and other demographic) groups. Support is very high among Republicans, Democrats, and Independents -- and among both men and women, among all age groups, and in all regions of the country. Here are those numbers:

The people are not happy with the status quo, and they would like something done. Unfortunately, Congress is not likely to do anything at all. Our elected officials (especially Republicans) like all that free money from corporations and outside groups -- and none of them are interested in fair and equally-funded campaigns (which might result in their own defeat).