The Cost of Opportunity
Between the remaining primaries we are getting reports on how much the candidates have raised for their respective campaigns. It will cost about $100 million to get some of the elected that will make $400,000 annually. If we ever thought about the other uses for the money? At least one of the candidates talks about the opportunity cost of a portion of the federal budget. More specifically, they will address the amount of money spent on the war in Iraq, and if we had used and money and spent it on domestic programs, we could have replaced bridges, schools, highways, and many other things. However, if we want to reduce the federal budget deficit, that amount of money would have had to have gone unspent. And of course, not a dime of it would have been wasted had it been better spent.
But what about the candidates money? All three of the major candidates are touring the country, or will tour this summer. And all three will have their hand out. They will be asking citizens about the country to donate to their cause and campaigns. Of course the true believers will donate-as they should. As noble and just we think that public financing is, I think it is among the worst uses of tax money. In fact, it should be the other way around. We should be using the campaign money to fund the programs that the candidates are talking about. Why waste all kinds of money on TV commercials that are run so often we become sick of them after one hour? That money could be spent on the first six days of a socialized healthcare program. That would give the average citizen, five days more of keeping their own money, instead of having to fork over to the government in the form of higher taxes.
We just went through a statewide election for a Supreme Court justice. Just about all of the campaigning was negative. And the day after it was over, the loser called for reform in the election process. The electorate called for change in a character process. Fortunately, this also send a message to Jim Doyle. Stop appointing justices that the electorate does not want. How long will it last?
One thing that we can be certain of is that there is plenty of money to be found in government coffers if we were to spend it wisely. Yes, I know this is a generic statement. It is long on theory and short on specifics. We can only hope that this will lead to a better tomorrow. After all, this is an election year, and everyone running for office will be repeating similar rhetoric.
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