| 摘要 | As the Washington Post has reported, the early start to the 2008 presidential election and formidable fund-raising power of many of the candidates are certain to make this presidential election cycle’s campaigns the most expensive in history. Total expenditures by the candidates are likely to top one billion dollars for the first time, a landmark that will certainly renew concerns about the influence of money in politics.
But just how much is $1 billion? The number inspires a knee-jerk reaction because it is so large that it is difficult to conceptualize it out of context. For many, an understanding of the figure would hardly be injured if they were told that the campaign cost one trillion or one gazillion dollars. These are all, in practice, ways of saying “a whole lot.”
But seen in context, a billion isn’t that much to spend on something as important as a presidential election campaign. Consider some comparisons: Forbes magazine recently estimated Bill Gates’ personal net worth to be in excess of $50 billion. He could fund the campaigns himself and barely notice the loss, as could approximately fifteen other Americans who have personal net worths in excess of $10 billion.
A comparison to certain government expenditures is similarly telling. The most recently commissioned U.S. aircraft carrier, the USS George H. W. Bush, cost taxpayers $4.5 billion. Taxpayers will subsidize the new stadium for the New York Yankees to the tune of nearly half a billion dollars while Boston’s “Big Dig” highway project cost a staggering $14.6 billion. The 2005 transportation bill—a routine fixture for legislators to hang pet amendments like so many ornaments on a Christmas tree—came within a hair’s breadth of appropriating a quarter billion dollars for a bridge that would have facilitated driving to an Alaskan island with fewer than fifty residents. One billion dollars only constitutes about three hundredths of one percent of the annual federal budget. And some economists place the cost of the war in Iraq at $1 trillion, which would be enough to finance presidential campaigning at the $1 billion dollar level for the next four thousand years.
Turning to the commercial world, the remake of “King Kong” cost more than a fifth of a billion dollars, the newest “Superman” movie more than a quarter of a billion. General Motors, the top U.S. marketer in terms of advertising expenditures, spent $4 billion on advertising in 2004, the last year for which comprehensive data are available from Ad Age. Meanwhile, a Super Bowl advertisement cost $2.6 million for thirty seconds, making $1 billion equivalent to a bit more than three hours of non-stop advertising. TowerGroup, a financial-services research firm, recently estimated that, of the $80 billion Americans gave each other in gift certificates in 2006, about $8 billion worth will be stuck in the backs of drawers and forgotten forever (or at least until their expiration), enough to fund eight election cycles at the current level.
The figures above invite us to consider the social value of political campaigns. How much do campaigns contribute to the public good, as compared with other big-ticket items? On the one hand, some see the social contribution of political campaigns as limited to a wasteful slew of base attack advertisements, unsightly lawn signs, and dinner-interrupting robo-calls. On the other hand, they do serve, in a basic way, to educate the electorate, create excitement for our basic political institutions, and are the only way for candidates to address their constituents without filtering by the media. How much is this quadrennial contribution worth to society? Does society value it as much as a few Hollywood blockbusters or two sports stadiums? More? Less?
These figures also undermine at least one objection to the public financing of election campaigns: that such financing would be an unwieldy burden for the federal budget. Most would agree that the current level of spending allows for more than ample campaigns. Yet if the $1 billion cost were divided evenly among the adult U.S. population, it would amount to a mere $1.10 per person per year. In other words, the average American could easily spend more on a pack of Doublemint gum than her yearly tax liability for presidential campaigns.
Of course other objections to public financing can be raised on value judgments, rather than practical considerations. But a candid assessment of how much is actually being spent is essential to an informed debate. On the one hand, perhaps the small amount of money being spent indicates that the infection of money in politics isn’t as bad as some have made it out to be. But on the other hand, maybe we should be embarrassed not only by the extent to which money takes democracy away from the voter, but also by how cheaply we let it go.
Timothy J. Ryan is a Research Assistant for the AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project. This article is adapted from an earlier article that appeared in the March, 2007 edition of AEI’s Political Report.
Image credits: Photo montage by Darren Wamboldt; photos courtesy of Flickr users sooz, kalexnova, Lindsey Spirit, and vannessapr
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