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Letter: Make Cedar County a leader in voter turnout
Op-Ed · September 04, 2014
A few weeks ago, an editor for the Tipton Conservative posed a question for her readers.
What were their thoughts on billionaire Warren Buffet’s proposed Congressional Reform Act of 2014, and other suggestions for getting Congress to govern productively again? She included in her column a list of payments that we taxpayers make, annually, for life, to political leaders who have finished their terms.
“Buffet’s Rule” seems like a step in the right direction. There is no reason to pay legislators past their term of service, and lowering the financial incentives for becoming a legislator should help us recruit people who are more interested in legislating and governing.
Money plays an unhealthy role in politics in other ways, too. From outright bribery, to paying for factually inaccurate or misleading advertising. All of the millions of dollars spent on this election cycle’s races will only lower the level of serious conversation, and keep us from working on long-term solutions.
Advertising works.
The power that money provides by buying advertising overwhelms most attempts to educate voters with accurate, balanced information.
One politician, defending the Citizen’s United decision by the Supreme Court, says that the decision only leveled the playing field, allowing corporations that don’t own media outlets to compete with corporations that do own media outlets.
Which businesses have been prevented from buying ads, or submitting letters to the editor? Where is the concept of a “free press” in that statement? The only result of the Citizen’s United decision is to deny the very real power of advertising to distort information, and to hide who is behind particular distortions.
Term limits and different term lengths could be addressed as well. Spending this much money and energy every two years means more time campaigning than working at governing.
There is no doubt that not enough of us take part in learning about and electing our government officials. How about making Cedar County a leader in voting participation this election?
Laura Twing, Tipton
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