I sure wish I had looked to see what the Dem. Convention cost the Federal Government. If it's matching funds... .
Edit:
Who pays for it? The Democratic Party (and the GOP) receives $15 million in taxpayer funds from the Federal Election Commission to pay convention costs. Remaining costs are picked up by the city.
[QUOTE=Weasel] <snip>
Can someone explain how one party gets $50 Million from the government while the other only gets $15 Million?
The next question would be...why does the government give them (both) this much money to start with?[/QUOTE]
Well - cause the republicans has more expenses I would think, for instance the need of heart surgons and medical facilities on stand-by for the VP and crew.
Seriously thought - I do find it wierd that both parties recive so much money, and evenmore so the obvious difference between the two (if the sources are correct with the amount).
That is a whole lot of money that could be spend otherwise on better areas.
The government. Bah. What good have they done for me lately? I keep calling my senator and telling him that he needs to ban the sale of PlayStations in all fifty states, but they always hang up on me...... I don't understand why either.
[QUOTE=Weasel]The next question would be...why does the government give them (both) this much money to start with?[/QUOTE]
Some moron sold Congress on the idea (wasn't hard) that this would reduce the influence of special interests in elections (fat chance).
There's nothing a little poison couldn't cure...
What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, ... to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if he people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security.
A bunch of bull-puckey, isn't it? Make 'em have their conventions on neighborhood baseball diamonds, I say. Folding tables, metal chairs, a bullhorn for the speaker, and little brown-bag lunches with bologna and cheese sandwiches, with a little Planet Lunch bag of fritos. Bleachers for the spin-docs (um, I mean press corps) and porta-potties for when you feel nature's call.
Make 'em ride public transportation there, too.
CYNIC, n.:
A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be. -[url="http://www.alcyone.com/max/lit/devils/a.html"]The Devil's Dictionary[/url]
I LOVE that pic. Sure makes one wonder what country you're actually reading about, when a grunt with an M60 is seen guarding the proceedings. I'm hearing the Harry Belafonte classic "Banana Boat" playing in the background.
It's actually hard for Eurotrash like me to fathom the scope of this thing. Where do you put all those detainees? That's about as many arrests as there is in this burg in 6 months!
Anyways, this is IMHO the most exciting ellection in ages. One can only hope that the events of the last 4 years has put an end to some of the lethargy of the Yank population, and that more people will actually come out and VOTE this time.
I am not young enough to know everything. - Oscar Wilde
Support bacteria, they're the only culture some people have!
