Presidential Dollars
So you want to be President of the United States do you? Well, before you even get to the office, or in some cases even before you get the official party nod, be prepared to spend millions, and I mean millions, of dollars. The University of Wisconsin’s Advertising Project has been adding up television ad expenditures and so far, they estimate approximately $195 million dollars has been spent on TV ads. They do expect the number to rise as the conventions are still three months away.
There’s something terribly wrong with the way politics is run these days. The founding fathers never intended politics to turn into a profession. I think it’s time to seriously take a look at term limits. Many politicians have no clue what it’s like to be a common person anymore. Instead, they’ve turned the whole election and political process into one huge money making machine. This is obvious when you look at the amount of money spent on political campaigns, especially for the office of President which pays approximately $400 thousand a year.
According to the U or W’s research, Democrats have spent the most advertising money so far, ringing up approximately $136 million dollars in spending. Senator Obama’s TV ads have cost, up to now, $75 million dollars! That figure not only dwarfs Senator Hillary Clinton’s total of $41 million dollars, but far exceeds what all the Republican candidates have spent combined — $58 million dollars.
Making matters even worse, especially in the cases of Senators Clinton and Obama, both candidates are crying that they’re out of money, and now have outstanding bills. Why is it that political candidates are allowed to rack up millions of dollars in debt in their “business” with no fallout? If any other business piled up such debts the government would swoop in and close them down. But this is not the case with these candidates. It’s obvious they have no clue how to balance their own budget, and we of course know they can’t balance a governmental budget.
This is simply another example of out of control government spending. While the spending is not straight out of the government budget, it is government spending out of control because the people spending the money want to be in office. When will this madness stop. If candidates can’t pay their advertising bills they either need to, A) Get out of the race; or B) Adjust their spending appropriately.
If they can’t do that, then maybe it’s time for some of these businesses that are owed the money, to take the candidate to court and sue them for payment. After all, that is what happens in the real world. But then again, when was the last time any politician knew what it was like to live in the real world.
Just my two cents,
Dr. Rus
