You Cannot Stop the Spending!

     This is the time when the radicals scream the loudest. The midterm elections have just concluded but the campaign reformers have just begun. Campaign Reformers are people who are frustrated with Congress and seek to change it. These people criticize Congress for its lack of problem solving abilities, scandals, and what I will be focusing on, excessive spending. Campaign Reformers have recently called for financial reform. These reformers would be looking at the massive war chest of Rosa DeLauro as motivation to get the system reformed. Her finances allow her to have a large advantage over her opponents. As seen in the way she utterly destroyed her opponent Jerry Labriola. However, all of these suggestions and actions toward reform ultimately fail because legislators like Rosa DeLauro with money to spend will always seek a way around it.
                        Rosa DeLauro raised about $898,214 for her campaign and spent over ninety percent of it. While her opponent Jerry Labriola only managed to raise $108,344 and spent only about half of it. It is obvious who had the advantage. Reformers criticize those wealthy incumbents who are able to ensure their victory by spending an excessive amount of money on their campaign because they do not give qualified opponents a fighting chance.

http://www.opensecrets.org/races/summary.php?id=CT03&cycle=2010

                       In response, Campaign Reformers have proposed a number of ideas to reform the system, but I believe this will do nothing but encourage offsetting behavior. For example, they advocated a balanced budget amendment to prevent “pork barrel” spending by the legislators who only seek to strengthen their chances of reelection. However, critics believe this will only encourage people to think of new ways of accounting and cause other major setbacks (Herrnson 243). There was even a bill known as the Bi-partisan Campaign Finance Reform Act (McCain and Feingald) ; that was passed to regulate campaign spending but this ultimately failed because people found ways around it such as creating “527 groups” (groups that spend a massive amount of money towards the elections) and taking their grievances to court (claiming their financial freedom was protected by the first amendment).
                    So the Campaign Reformers can kick and scream all they like but I do not see it resulting in change any time soon.