Price of Admission

After years of being lectured by Democrats in the legislature who, despite this massive deficit, want to keep millions of taxpayer dollars to spend on their campaigns, we can see that this supposed reform hasn't changed much at all in terms of influence.

Blowhards like Rep. Chris Caruso who wag their index finger in our collective faces saying public financing takes the influence out of politics are clearly peddling undistilled bullshit. What it does is make certain that each of these legislators can steal a $25,000 bag of cash from state coffers every time they run. This way, they say, they can spend more time talking about the important issues instead of raising money. In other words, they have to work less hard at convincing people to donate to them. This isn't political bravery. It's laziness, and it's greed fueled by an unmitigated overestimation of their own value.

Case in point (h/t to Capitol Report) is Denise Merrill, House Democrat Majority Leader. Despite claiming four years ago that the public financing measure would remove the lobbyist influence in Hartford, she is allowing the CT Food Industry to hold a $200-$1,000 per person fundraiser for her Majority PAC. This is, of course, perfectly legal. You see, the lobbyists can't donate to individual legislators, but they can donate to a caucus PAC which in turn gives the money to legislator's campaign. You and I are expected to believe that since the money goes through one extra set of partisan hands that the influence is no longer there.

It is a sham that we will all pay millions for while they can't manage to strip a single significant thing from their budget while we have a massive deficit.