Thursday, April 3, 2014

Congratulations, You Can Now Spend $5.3 Million on Political Candidates This Year

From:  The Wire



Image Shutterstock / Melpomene / The Wire
Photo by Melpomene on Shutterstock. (SHUTTERSTOCK / MELPOMENE / THE WIRE)
With the Supreme Court's decision to lift the overall cap on campaign spending on Wednesday, Americans are now free to contribute to as many candidates as they wish. We decided to figure out the most they — you! — could spend.
Maybe you aren't worried about this, but big donors are. It used to be that the millionaires who get calls from candidates could, at some point, defer by saying they'd reached the annual limit. And with the new ruling, Politico reports, millionaire donors aren't happy to have lost that excuse. "I’m horrified, planning to de-list my phone number and destroy my email address," lobbyist Ken Kies told the site. "What I was really hoping for is a ban on lobbyists making contributions entirely." Sorry, Ken! And sorry Bernie Madoff, who complained to Politico last month about the "never ending" solicitations from politicians. 

As Bernie noted, "politicians take money from anybody — Democrats, Republicans." Because they aren't dumb. Let's say there's a prominent business owner named Charles K. And let's say Charles K. gave to the Republican running for the House in Missouri. Well, if the Democrat in that race 1) has any shot of winning and 2) has been in politics for more than five minutes, he'll call Charles K., too, suggesting that since the race could go either way, maybe Charles wants to hedge his bets.  MORE

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