House Votes To End Publicly Funded Presidential Campaigns

The House on Wednesday passed a bill to end the public financing of presidential campaigns, 239-160.

The legislation is aimed at encouraging candidates to seek money from private funds and transfer the remaining balance in the Presidential Election Campaign Fund to the Treasury to help the nation’s deficit.

Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) proposed the measure and has called it a “no-brainer” to eliminate “frivolous spending” and wants to end the “Watergate-era programs” that allow taxpayers to pay for presidential campaigns. 

The GOP maintains that eliminating the $3 checkoff option on tax returns would mean a savings of $617 million over the next 10 years could be directed to the Treasury fund.

Republicans called on President Obama’s words in his State of the Union speech last night saying “whatever we can honestly afford to do without” in order to reduce the budget deficit. 

The Obama administration however expressed opposition to the bill and wants to see the financing for presidential campaign “fixed rather than dismantled.”

Democrats argue that it has been optional for taxpayers to allocate the $3 to presidential campaigning, and the elimination of such will “open the floodgates” to corporate agendas controlling the agendas.