Campaign finance reform

A post over at Marginal Revolution (although the idea originated from Edward Lopez at divisionoflabour.com) concerning the notion that campaigns need a greater amount of financing got me thinking. It's an interesting idea, but I disagree for a couple of reasons:

The first problem I see when comparing private spending on advertisement with public campaign spending is that the two are not completely analogous. Campaigns are focused around the election date, while private ads run throughout the year. Yes, campaign advertising may start a couple months before the election date, but it does not start in earnest before this. Therefore, campaigns are focusing spending during a relatively short time frame. Even if we say that campaigns can be thought of as lasting six months, this doubles the ratio of spending between public and private.

Also, markets play no role in public campaign spending. There is no private sector to determine the equilibrium of what public campaign spending should be. Clearly, there are market forces at work that determine how much businesses are willing to shell out for advertising. Would additional ads even be effective? As it is, politicians generally run smear campaigns against their opponents, and rarely discuss the issues at hand. Would more smear ads be all that helpful to the electorate? I also think that we have to address the fact that most congressional districts re-elect the incumbent -- somewhere around a whopping 97%! Is it worth throwing away more money on such foregone conclusions? I'm not saying that we should accept the political status quo, but it's an important question to address when considering an increase in public funding.

And then there is the problem of spending more tax dollars on campaigns. Would this be an efficient allocation of government spending? Could we not do more with this money elsewhere? Would increased finance of campaigns even result in the desired increase in quality of elected officials? I think it's hard to argue that simply spending more will earn taxpayers a higher return in "political capital" (i.e. better political representation). Even if it does, will that return be higher than the return that could be generated from investing those dollars in social or welfare programs?

Overall, I can't see constituents wanting to increase public campaign finance contribution levels.

ADDENDUM: If you check out the link, make sure you scroll down to the comments below. I think you'll find the ongoing debate quite interesting. Both sides make persuasive arguments.