In response to your editorial "Sorry, it's hardly reform," April 18, concerning campaign finance reform, I would recommend you consider a few things. In fact, I used to be a proponent of publicly financed campaigns and contribution limits until I considered them.
If we finance campaigns, we will have increased expense. In an age when government needs to decrease spending, we don't need to add new expenditures to our government.
If we limit contribution amounts, it means politicians need to go to more people to receive such contributions. It always sounds good to limit contributions to hopefully decrease the amount of sway any one person or group might have on a politician. The issue however is, as Fred Dicker of the New York Post so eloquently points out, politicians already spend many of their hours each day and week raising money. This would simply increase the amount of time devoted to that and decrease the time devoted to actually governing. It might also make it so that the only people who could run successfully for office would be the extremely wealthy.
The reason we have many of the issues we have is because out-of-touch politicians and union bosses run our country. This would only make it worse.
It sounds wonderful to limit contributions, until one thinks through things a little more.
Daniel McCarty
Zoar Financial, Albany