week 10-Letter

Dear Dude,
I found a ton of stuff about the negative effects of campaign finance laws. So everyone thinks that campaign finance laws, which regulate the quantity of campaign money spent and how it is spent, help to keep out corruption and stop people from being turned away from politicians because of all the negative ads that would arise. This apparently is far from the truth. There has been studies done by people such as the studies from one article I read called “Campaign Advertising and Voter Turnout: New Evidence for a Stimulation Effect” which directly disagree with this premise. Instead of negative ads turning off voters, they found that negative ads actually interest voters. With more ads, especially negative ads, people are more informed, have more opinions and are much more likely to vote. When limits on campaign spending are removed, campaign spending increases. The increase in political advertising which results from this not only causes the previously mentioned effects but also these effects are concentrated on people who would otherwise know little about politics and would be least likely to vote. Most people would say that these are the people who need to be informed the most. It's interesting how these laws limit the very effect they are designed to cause. Just another example politicians bungling around with our society.
Remember how the supreme court overturned BRCA last January? You can't believe the amount of people who are upset about that. It's like they don't know that because of all these regulations regular people and small grassroots organizations are unable to spread their views. They seem to think that it will cause all the big evil companies to control the system where really it's the present laws that are allowing just that. With all these rules no one can really show their support for candidates without savvy lawyers to advise them. The big companies who can afford these are able to easily slip around the rules while regular grassroots organization are being fined by the federal campaign commission left and right. That doesn't even take into account the costs of regulating this stuff. We pay for all these bureaucrats to make sure these people are "playing by the rules." I bet that money could be mush better spent. Hopefully the courts keep fighting these crazy rules and let people bee free to spend their money how they want. Well, I know how you like this stuff, Ill see you at the barbecue.
Later Dude,

McKay Salisbury