House Candidates To Spend Over $1 Billion On Elections

The combined cost of the 2010 elections for the House of Representatives will total well more than $1 billion, according to a new analysis by a nonpartisan watchdog group.

Public Campaign Action Fund is pegging the final price tag for this year's House elections at a jaw-dropping $1.45 billion dollars, a 54 percent increasing in spending from 2008.

The total is not set in stone. The group came to the figure after analyzing data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics through the first three quarters of this year. But the trend lines all portend a historically pricey election and not just on the spending side. House candidates are also on pace to raise $1.275 billion, up from the $921.5 million in 2008 (the spending totals are higher then the fundraising totals because projections are based on 3rd quarter data, when candidates had yet to spend all the cash they've raised).

"Candidates are raising more money in 2010 than ever before, and spending it at a much quicker pace than 2008," said David Donnelly, director of Public Campaign Action Fund's Campaign Money Watch project. "With all the attack ads, candidates have to spend more time dialing for dollars and less time talking with voters. They have to feed the beast -- the endless raising and spending for campaigns -- that is devouring our democracy."

For all the discussion about runaway spending, there has been relatively little concern (at least from Republican candidates) about a campaign finance system that is breaking the bank. Take for instance, the defining symbol of government waste from the 2008 election: the $1 million earmark that then-Sen. Hillary Clinton had put aside for a Woodstock Concert Museum in upstate New York. In 2010, each of the two main parties' congressional candidates (870 in total) could place a Woodstock memorial in their own district and they would still fall $580 million (or $660,000 per candidate) short of the total price tag of House elections.

The explosion of fundraising and spending has, indeed, been one of the defining features of the 2010 election cycle. And it should be considered, as Donnelly notes, independent from the related story of the rise of anonymous donors. The figures that Public Campaign Action Fund projects include only the money being sent to and spent by candidate committees.

Comments

[Luv2Purple]

07:20 PM on 11/03/2010

REAGAN's VOODOO economics TRIPLED the nations DEBT during his 8 years! We have never recovered!!! Bush sr DOUBLED the DEBT again - so did JUNIOR. Tea Baggers - since we began the Obama preidency w/ a national debt of 13TRILLION$ and about TEN TRILLION of that was rung up by Reagan/Bush/Junior. So where was your outrage then tea baggers? The tax code used to tax investments over work but the rethugliclowns reversed that. So now their huge debt of mismanagement will have to be born on the backs of America's children and working poor. VOODOO ECONOMICS people plain and simple. The Rethugliclowns think we can all eat the crumbs off the wealth tables....yum, yum.

[RetFF2010]

11:38 PM on 10/26/2010

Watch Collapse by Michael Ruppert, this is what they are preparing for...

[Philament]

08:03 PM on 10/26/2010

Citizens United unleashed a tsunami of special interest money that individual voters cannot keep pace with. It's like Citizens United was a huge new tax for moderates and progressives who don't want corporate "free speech" or whatever to completely drown out all other voices. It's unconscionable that such a simple, common sense bill as the Disclose Act died in the Senate. We still need campaign finance reform!

[cave mann35]

07:42 PM on 10/26/2010

Over a billion to get a $200,000 a year job . . . wow! And this is on the heels of the Great Recession, right? Corporations and banks had to be bailed out, they have laid off millions of American workers, sent jobs to emerging markets in Singapore and India, yet these same corporations that can't hire, and must fire and offshore surprisingly have cash to invest on senators, congressmen, and judges. I'm not sure I can stand the hypocrisy!

[Beenjammin41]

09:24 PM on 10/26/2010

Yet the biggest contributors have been the unions. No one is talking about that here.

[cave mann35]

01:14 PM on 10/27/2010

Unions have elections to see what the members desire, and based upon those elections, the unions can spend their dues like corporations. The difference is that unions are not hiding their donations and giving to 501(c)(4)'s. IF you want your generous corporate freedom of speech rights brought to you by DAvid and Charles Koch, what's the issue with saying who is doing the speaking?

[EricBishop]

06:39 PM on 10/26/2010

Man, nobody's paid that much just to lie to someone since Steven Spielberg's first marriage.

Zing!

[PrasadD]

03:39 PM on 10/26/2010

We, tax payers pay their salaries, health care and pensions. But we have no say in their hiring or in their pay or in their generous benefits. We supposed to be their bosses. No, we have nothing. They have authority to order us what we have to do. They are our bosses, and we pay them.

They form unions, and the party in the power offers them good pay and very generous benefits. In return their unions pour millions into getting the party elected to get more more favors. It is win-win for them politicians and public sector unions -we, tax payers are the losers here.

Hey, it's our money, but we cannot do anything, we are helpless.

Why is this not illegal that government employee unions involved in politics?

What is this - politicians, unions and corporations are sharing the loot after robbing tax payers?

[Marie Russell-Barker]

03:39 PM on 10/26/2010

Why this article is not addressing why the funding have risen so high for this Political Cycle?

This is because of the hidden donor giving contribution to one party over another secretly and some have big reason to give so much to these parties for example the Chambers of Commerce who have loads of money that comes from big businesses and foreign countries that is being used to fund the other parties.

The Chambers want to keep in place sourcing out American job and foreign countries want these companies to continue to rip off the American jobs. This is the reason for this record breaking funding. Big Companies, Rich People and Foreign Countries are against the working class people. With them in charge this country will become a third world in no time. China who is fighting to become the world leader is included in this fight what a better way of taking our democracy away.

Many foreign countries are jealous of our freedom that is at stake here as well just listen to what the Tea Parties are saying about what they want to do if they become the party of recognition.

This is about our freedom our democracy this is why we must vote our everything depends up on it.

[SwingingFromCenter]

03:45 PM on 10/26/2010

Neither side is short on funds. Your attempts to claim otherwise are laughable. They're both bought and paid for, and as long as people like you continue to support the 2 party system, it will remain that way.

[Flowymac]

05:19 PM on 10/26/2010

Republicans were very short in the beginning and then the CC kicked in and put them on the top.. Money from abroad bought this election and it will from here on out..

[lightningbolt]

03:04 PM on 10/26/2010

I keep reading these articles about campaign finance and the one thing I notice the most is that every single media corporation is refusing to acknowledge the fact that a campaign donation is a BRIBE! Why is the media not calling a bribe a bribe? The media is one of the biggest beneficiaries of bribery. Candidates spend all of their bribes buying ads on the media, and therefore, it is in the media's best interest to not call it bribery.

[pfz]

03:04 PM on 10/26/2010

On the bright side we are in a GOP/TP recession so the more money spent the better.

[ncmom54]

02:26 PM on 10/26/2010

must feed the ravenous MIC (Media Industrial Complex)

[Dr Carol LaBra]

02:09 PM on 10/26/2010

I only upload this link to show all what the Dali Lama His Holiness allows to take place by his host of students Zen of the higher path but only sometimes the lower is allowed.:

http://bramin.wordpress.com/2008/04/14/buddhist-threatens-to-set-self-on-fireif-all-war-not-over-by-6pm/

For your family pictures are worth words too many but yes. Or be For as it says in your Declaration de Homo Sapient, ´When in the course of human evolution it be necessary to create among the following:

http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&gbv=2&tbs=isch:1&&sa=X&ei=vPvGTPjcKcH7lwfz9KzZDw&ved=0CCAQBSgA&q=depleted+uranium+baby+images&spell=1

!NAMESTE! Please, you have a happy face too like the others so many.

[mblakney]

01:56 PM on 10/26/2010

A loaf of Honey Wheat Bread--- $2.99
A Gallon of Gasoline ------------- $2.67
Unemployment Rate---------------- 9.7%
----------------------------------------------------------
R & D Run for House--------- $1,500,000,000+
What The F@##!!!!”
Only in America where the main food staple cost more than a gallon of gas.
Wait for it............... They'll jack the gas price up in a minute.

[MacHuffP]

01:23 PM on 10/26/2010

Vote ALL incumbents out!!!

Give the new Congressmen/women a chance to support the illegal immigrants
and career welfare recipients.

[grf67]

12:37 PM on 10/26/2010

The only thing that folks in congress are really go at is spending other people's money. Do not expect anything for your dollars.

[Roland19]

12:32 PM on 10/26/2010

What a waste. Just think of that money could better be spent.