While I like the proposed improvement on the base idea (unspendable vouchers that campaigns can redeem for cash) we should first question the Wublather of "We need to embrace a market solution to this problem."

A constant rhetorical obsequiousness to "markets" and the resulting impoverishment of thought is one of the biggest problems we face today. "The Marketplace of Ideas" is a metaphor becoming a monstrous reality, where ideas devoid of intellectual substance crowd out important ideas just like ads for Coke and Pepsi crowd out any mention of real food -- and with similar results.

It's a category error. Elections are very much NOT supposed to be markets. Wu, suddenly awakening from his comatose slumber all these years, seizes on an idea that's been around a long time (it's in Bill Greider's book "Who Will Tell the People?" for example) but then has to apply that special touch, bowing to "markets," that tells you he hasn't got the first idea about any of this, he just hopes it gets as much press as his divorce.

Kari, why do you think the tax credit is a better idea than public campaign financing? Do you know how the credit is distributed among income classes? If it's anything like other credits, wealthy people reap a far greater percentage of the money than working people.

Why not instead create a teeny tiny flat tax on incomes over say $30,000 and divide the proceeds equally among candidates according to the votes for their respective offices in the last election?

We need to avoid the trap of creating credits that feel and sound good (Oregon Cultural Trust being another example), but wind up putting money primarily into the pockets of rich people.

Campaign limits violate personal freedoms. If I want to give $100,000 to a candidate, I should be able to do this. I earned it and I should be able to do anything I want with it. The government has no place in providing a tax incentive for giving to a party. This is simply a poll to plug David Wu's sagging poll numbers and sagging political coffers. David Wu's political strategies and behavior are so predictable.

Http://www.BrodheadForCongress.com

Kari Chisholm:

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Congressman David Wu argues that Oregon's $50 political tax credit should go national -- as a way of combating the Supreme Court's absurd decision to open the floodgates to independent expenditures by corporations (including foreign corporations.)

Bob T:

Kari, so far as I know the recent decision (an excellent one, by the way) did NOT address the foreign corporate contributions, although you may be referring to ads they may pay for that do not name candidates, either for a against. The law that bars such contributions to candidates remains in place.

Bob Tiernan Portland

"Campaign limits violate personal freedoms."

So do a slew of bribery and ethics laws. If I want to buy my pal Duke Cunningham a million dollar beach shack, why shouldn't I? It's my money, I earned it...

I love the tax credit...I can donate to Oregon Right to Life and the State gets $50 less from me in taxes!

All David Wu wants is his dinky cocktail weenie peenie up your butt. Matt looks hot to trot!

In his book Making Government Work, Hollings argues that the only way to enact real campaign finance reform would be to repeal the 1976 Buckley vs. Valeo, which equates money as speech. Although that ruling allowed the fundraising limits of the 1974 campaign Finance Act to endure, spending limits were struck down. Overturning it would require a constitutional amendment.

Hollings argues that the system since then has required candidates to spend much more time fundraising, and less time legislating and socializing to build relationships with colleagues. He even goes so far as to arguing that fundraising prowess by members , and their generosity to their same party colleagues in need is now the main avenue to committee advancement, not seniority and ability.

The 1974 $1,000 limit, indexed for inflation, would be over $4,000 today. It wasn't raised to $2,000 until McCain-Feingold in 2003 and indexed since then to $2,300 (double that when counting primary and general). Although that sounds like a lot, it takes a lot of $2,300 and under donations (the 1974 PAC limit of $5,000 hasn't been changed) to come up with $3 million or $4 million dollars , which would seem to be pretty much a minimum for a successful U.S. Senate race in OR. A repeal of Buckley vs. Valeo would allow a ceiling at that amount, instead of the skies the limit amounts that OR first saw under Packwood in '86 and that have become common since then.

The presidential public finance system worked pretty well until recently and could be a model for congressional candidates. The carrot and stick approach was successful where candidates would agree to a spending limit ($50 million for the '08 primaries) in exchange for receiving matching funds from the federal government. Two provisions need to be changed to make that system viable once again. The $250 maximum for matched contributions need to be indexed for inflation, and the spending limits need to be seriously raised, or removed.

Nearly all candidates except for self funders like Perot and Forbes worked within that old system, until Bush bypassed it in '00 and '04 and showed that he could raise over $100 million during the primaries, far surpassing the spending limits. Dean's fundraising surge in '03 caused him to decline matching funds, and Kerry took a big gamble in following him, a gamble that paid off. Obama and Hillary never had any intention of going the old route, and they proved that they could exceed Republicans at fundraising, each of their campaigns raising $100 million before Iowa. There is a word to describe candidates who now accept matching funds: LOSER.

Regarding the OR political tax credit, most OR candidates and PACS try to use it as a fundraising tool, but I question its impact. I remember the figure ten years ago that less 5% of OR tax filers use it, and I think most of us give what we give regardless of the credit. Some would disagree, like Sal Peratta, who has argued that a lot of his donors would not have given otherwise.

I think congress should consider Congressman Wu's proposal. However, all the $50 donations in the world will be a drop in the bucket under the current system, let alone the new mess that the court has just created. Congress needs to correct it soon.

"...so far as I know the recent decision (an excellent one, by the way) did NOT address the foreign corporate contributions..."

I find it interesting that we act as though corporations have national identities or act as though they are citizens of the nation in which they may have been incorporated. As capital has become globalized in ways that were unimaginable few decades ago, the charade that corporations have more than a passing interest in the locales in which they may have been created or in which they maintain paper "citizenship" is laughable.

An example of this is Murdoch and News Corp., which brays Tea Party agitprop in the US while he maintains a lick-spittle deferential relationship to China in his Asian markets. Is News Corp an "American" corporation? Why?

An exception to this may be China itself, in which state and corporate interests are married into a hybrid, but it's an anomaly.

You can make the same case for governments, more and more, Ron.