Here’s a crazy idea…

What if some or most of the money spent on local, state and national campaigns was actually spent solving the problems that politicians debate and attack each other about?

Advocacy groups estimate campaign spending at between $4 billion to $5.5 per election year. Of course presidential election years are more expensive.

Las Vegas billionaire gambling tycoon Sheldon Adelson, the self-proclaimed “richest Jew in the world,” wants to help Mitt Romney unseat Barack Obama in this election. He has said that he is willing to put up $100 million of his own money (which reportedly totals $25 billion) to make this happen. Such a donation is possible only because an ethically-challenged, politically-motivated Supreme Court majority decided that a corporation is a person and that there should be no limit to how much of their resources they can use in campaigns. In other words, it is now legal to purchase an election.

What’s crazy is that half the money spent on elections could go a long way to resolving most, if not all of today’s major problems. If all this SuperPAC money were used to help with poverty or job creation, where would our employment and poverty rates be? How many lives would be made whole again of those people who are victims in Tornado Alley, for example? What would be possible in health, education or the arts?

Just a thought…

This article was originally published in the September 24, 2012 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper