The 527 loophole

Recently, Republicans proposed closing the 527 loophole, which gave the Democrats more than three times as much funding as Republicans. The bill is completely politically motivated, but is actually quite progressive. Democrats naturally dragged their feet on it, but should in fact support it for many reasons.

First of all, the bill is progressive in nature. It bans unlimited contributions from moneyed interests, which puts the power in the hands of common people. Taking huge payments out of the system would take some of the influence away from corporations, unions (although I agree with their causes, the union members could provide their support instead hopefully), and billionaires. The politicians would be dependent upon small donations from lots of people. Recall when the soft money ban was put in place by McCain-Feingold. This was supposed to destroy the Democratic Party, but instead boosted its fundraising ability, and expanded the power of people in the party.

I just read an article that said taking the 527 organization and operations into the Democratic Party would be a huge advantage. While the Republicans do door-to-door and direct mailing, Democrats do on a smaller scale, and depend on 527's, such as environmental groups, to get support. This would improve the Democratic Party, if it picked up the slack and harnessed this grassroots support. Most importantly, if the Party took over these operations, it would let people know what the Democratic Party is all about. Of course our informed readers know what the Party is all about, but it would take away the criticism from ignorant Republicans. All in all, we should be right behind this bill, and pass it with our full support. This would show Democrats are not hypocritical on their values, and also help us out tons.