Once and Again

No matter how bad the budget deficit gets, leftists in Annapolis still always come back the bad idea of public campaign financing:

After narrowly failing last year, advocates are trying again to make Maryland one of a handful of states that publicly fund campaigns for office, a reform they believe will diminish the influence of moneyed special interests.

"I think politicians should be beholden to the public, not to big donors," said Sen. Paul G. Pinsky, a Prince George's County Democrat who sponsored legislation the past two years that would provide state funds to political candidates who volunteer to forgo most funding from private donors.

It seems like we have to start reminding people year after year and time and again as to why this is such a bad idea. Anybody who truly believes that the public financing of elections is going to clean up politics is, as I have stated before, is shockingly naïve.

What's even more damning about the return of Senator Pinsky's proposal is the current budget mess that we find ourselves in. It's kind of hard to get jacked up about spending more of the public's money on another pointless, useless program when the people are being taxed to death in a recession. One would think that the estimated $7.5 million that would be used to fund the program would be better spent, I don't know, on crime prevention or education instead of Pollyannaish feel good programs.

If only we could get the General Assembly to pay attention to the people's business every once and awhile...