In the November 2006 election, Californians will vote on Proposition 89, which would increase taxes on corporations to finance political campaigns. Forcing taxpayers to pay for political propaganda is as clean as untreated sewage. Inflicting the tax on corporate earnings (including incorporated small business) does not make it clean. Corporate taxes are passed on to consumers and create disincentives to locate business in California, reducing employment.

The corrupting influence of special-interest campaign funds is a symptom of a bad political structure. "Public funding" forces taxpayers to patch up a badly constructed system, as the moneyed interests find other ways to influence legislation.

The reason special interests get privileges is that they exploit an inherently corrupting voting system, mass democracy. When thousands of voters elect a representative, politicians must use mass media to exclaim that they are the true champions of the people. The need to use expensive media creates a huge demand for campaign funds. The moneyed interests, such as big corporations, supply these funds in exchange for political favors.

Tax-paid campaign financing also strengthens the domination of the establishment parties, the Democrats and Republicans, stifling competition from the smaller challenger parties. This strengthens the status quo at the expense of new ideas that could better solve our social problems.

Moreover, tax-paid financing will not stop the privilege seeking of the special interests. It is like standing on your toes to see a parade better. If everybody does it, then you are no better off. Tax-paid campaigns put politicians who receive them on their toes, so to get an advantage, a politician needs stilts, and the special interests once again are happy to provide them.

Attempts to severely limit private financing of political campaigns inevitably fail. The moneyed interests find ways to get around the restrictions, such as financing "nonprofit" organizations to place the ads. Small business have more difficulty doing this, so Proposition 89 will hurt small business much more than the big political players. The demand for extra campaign money is inherent in mass democracy, and where there is demand, supply will inevitably follow. Also, free speech is stifled when speakers are unable to finance the transmission of speech. Extreme restrictions on political financing will be challenged in the courts.

Advocates of Proposition 89 claim it creates a level playing field for elections, but this claim is false for two reasons. First, the proposition favors the major parties and candidates who can collect more signatures. Second, it does not really stop the special-interest money. In fact, it creates a vicious upward spiral of increasing funding by matching the funds from other sources. Moreover, when we force taxpayers, including consumers to whom the tax has been transferred, to pay for accusatory negative ads, how can that be anything but disgustingly filthy? It's bad enough we have to watch these mean-spirited ads—it adds injury to insult to force us to pay for them.

The supporters of Proposition 89 either represent special interests, or they just don't understand the inherent problem of mass democracy. The only effective way to remove the unclean influence of special interests is to eliminate the cause, by radically decentralizing the structure of government and voting.

We could replace mass democracy by voting only for neighborhood representatives whom we can know. Candidates would not need big campaign funding. Local councils would then send representatives to city councils, who would send representatives to county boards. The boards would then elect the state legislature. With all voting in small groups, special interests could be rebuffed in local meetings and personal conversations. The power of the individual voter would be leveraged up by being able to recall any official who fails to truly represent the people.

The corruption in politics is so deep and ingrained that only such a fundamental decentralization can clean it out. The most important reason to vote against Proposition 89 is that when tax-paid political financing is in place, it will be extremely difficult to remove, no matter how much it fails, because it cements the status quo into power. The public will be helpless to get rid of corrupt politicians, because status quo politicians will get most of the government funding and yet still benefit from the special-interest campaigning that will sneak through loopholes that cannot be closed without totally stifling political speech.