[manithree]

> Get money out of politics

If you also mean make it so Congress doesn't have a $4T slush fund to buy favors and influence every year, then I'm on board. If you think reducing the paltry sums spent on campaign contributions is going to take the money out of politics, you're bad at math.

[Gormo]

The best way to get money out of politics is to get politics out of money. The government playing an outsized role in the economy is precisely what draws money into the political process in the first place.

[cucumber3732842]

This. If you're the trade group for a billion dollar industry you'd be not doing your job if you didn't buy both sides of the isle. With how powerful the government is you can't afford not to.

[pear01]

Weird way to agree with someone, end with an insult just because you're not sure whether or not you should take the least charitable interpretation. You would think the rest of my post would have been a clue.

Moving past that, yes we are in agreement. In fact you bring up an excellent point, which is that political parties themselves make corrupt use of campaign finance lawlessness to get in the way of their own voters and rig their own primary systems. None of these entities, whether the DNC or a right wing corporate interest group should be able to buy and sell American elections.

Individual campaign contributions are a non issue, also because regular people are capped at relatively low and long established FEC limits these various slush funds/pacs are designed to circumvent. As you said, the math is clear. I'm confident if this issue were ever put straightly to the American people, the result would be overwhelmingly in favor of campaign finance reform. The real issue isn't anyone's ability to do math, but what you hinted at earlier. The political parties themselves enjoy and benefit from this corruption. Therefore they are incentivized to ensure such a vote never takes place.

The current moment offers an opportunity to overpower such entrenched powers that be, if we can collectively move beyond partisan finger pointing that will only alienate those fellow Americans we need to agree with us to make such a broad based reform possible.