Former President Jimmy Carter was featured on the Feb. 17 PBS “Conversations” show. Among many topics he spoke on was one which should be of great interest to all who are concerned with the growing influence of money in our election process.
Carter said when he and Gerald Ford faced off about 30 years ago, neither of them needed to call for donations!
The money in the federal fund collected from taxpayers’ check-off on their income tax forms was sufficient for both of them to run their entire campaigns! He added he thought this kept them from running the current day attack ads which flood the regular TV channels and are so very expensive.
Carter said not having such ads, in his opinion, helped keep the campaign more civil and more based on truth than what we have today. In addition, he decried the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on donations from corporations and super PACs, calling it “stupid” in no uncertain terms. Ever optimistic, Carter said he hoped the Supreme Court would see the destructive fallacy of that decision and act to undo it. I only wish I could be as optimistic on that issue as the former president was.
Benita Helseth
Lake Stevens
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