Word: problem
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...Statistics 100, for example, students must take a midterm today, on Good Friday, which, while not directly against the law, has deterred some from going home to celebrate with their families. In many classes, such as Sociology 67, lecture videos are unavailable, despite ample resources to fix this problem. We understand some professors’ aversion to putting lecture videos online to avoid tempting students to skip class, but we hardly think that taping the few lectures that fall on religious holidays constitute an “unreasonable burden” on Harvard or the professor in question. Nor should...
More importantly, reformers may be trying to solve a non-problem: Despite the appearance of corruption, it’s not clear how many donors actually attempt to buy political influence. Many contributions are motivated by social connections—people give money to friends, friends of friends, and so on—rather than a calculated effort to secure influence...
...fact, campaign finance reforms have literally silenced potential critics: Independent groups are banned from mentioning candidates’ names in the last 60 days of the election, which is precisely when voters are paying attention. According to McCain, the problem was that, “these groups often run ads that the candidates themselves disapprove of.” Therefore the ads had to be banned—god forbid we lowly proles raise our voices. After all, in doing so, we might threaten a congressman’s re-election chances, and politicians certainly know how to protect their...
Thus, campaign finance reform seems like a dangerous non-solution to a limited problem. But if taking money out of politics is indeed important, the only fail-safe means of doing so is to limit the size and power of the government. As Radley Balko, a senior editor at Reason magazine, recently argued, “The government can’t sell power and influence it doesn’t have.” If the federal trough were smaller, fewer special interest snouts could gorge themselves at the taxpayers expense, and therefore the pigs wouldn?...
...abracadabra, but because as long as the government wields extensive power to tax, spend, and regulate, interest groups will try to influence its actions. It’s not clear what proportion of campaign contributions are motivated by such rent-seeking (and therefore whether this is really a big problem), but unless we eviscerate the First Amendment or shrink the government, money is here to stay...