Voting down the Debt.

After hearing how much money Mitt Romney has been able to raise before the primary, at least $10 million, it got me to thinking about our voting process and how it could be used to help our country even more.

I thought of a simple plan, all money raised for a political campaign will be used to pay off our national debt. All but 10% of it for operating expenses. That includes commercials, fundraising events, travel, etc. But how could we pull that off? Well, the candidate who raises the most money wins the election. Your payment is your vote. Now of course that leads to a problem of the rich choosing the candidates for our elections, but that already happens anyway with helping pay for their candidacy contributions, and there are already limits on donations, so I don't see as much problem there as there could be.

Also, commercials are so expensive, how could a candidate pay for them with only 10% of what they used to get? TV and Radio companies would be offered considerable tax breaks for giving discounted ad rates on their stations to political candidates. In exchange for the discount they would be able to claim the revenue or discount on their taxes and be given a considerable refund for their troubles.

 Raise the most money, you win. Get your ideas out there about why you are the best candidate, and you raise more money. All the while paying down out national debt.

Based on the 2008 Presidential election contributions (which ran about $1.4 billion), we would be close to paying off our debt in 10 elections. And that doesn't even include any of the House, Senate or Governor races at all! Of course there is a slight flaw in my math, that once we start paying it down, our interest rate payment would be decreased as well, so in essence, including all major elections, we could have our debt paid off in 5 or 6 Presidential elections.

Wow! Is that ever something to think about.

All the best,
Will