RICK HUBBARD  FOR U.S. SENATE
Press Release July 30, 2000...

Hubbard Says Republican Party and Jeffords Ignore Meaningful Campaign Finance Reform

July 30, 2000
Contact: Rick Hubbard (802) 253-8544

[STOWE, VT]  - Candidate for U.S. Senate Rick Hubbard today strongly criticized the national Republican Party and Jim Jeffords for ignoring meaningful campaign finance reform in the upcoming elections.  Hubbard called on both the Republican Party and Jeffords to embrace comprehensive reforms that include full public financing of all campaigns for U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives.

According to Hubbard: “Big money contributions from special interests cause the shameless sale of public policy by Congress and we all know it. They limit and define our choice of candidates. They defer, misdirect, and block legislation to change our national priorities -- even when these changes are in the common interests of American citizens. They undermine our democracy and rob each of us of the opportunity to have government work for our common benefit. American citizens collectively pay hundreds of billions of dollars extra each year due to legislation benefiting special interests.”

Hubbard says we can provide our elected Congressional Representatives with proper incentives to pass legislation on behalf of all citizens by publicly financing campaigns with money from our federal treasury instead of with money from special interests. To do this requires an average annual investment of about $10 per American family or about $1 billion.  Passing legislation on behalf of all citizens, rather than special interests, can save the average American family $500 to $1000 annually. This is a return on investment of 50 to 100 times.

Consider just one example, among many, of how public financing would keep money in our pockets, said Hubbard. “We all pay more taxes to our federal treasury because Congress took contributions from the broadcasting industry and, four years ago, gave away a new digital part of the public airways for free to existing broadcast companies. The Federal Communication Commission estimates that auctioning off the right for broadcasting companies to make money using the public airways for digital transmission would have brought about $70 billion dollars into our federal treasury.  This loss of revenue was made up by our taxes.  That's an average cost of $700 per American family that could have been prevented by an investment of $10 per family, or $1 billion in public financing.   Said differently, the savings in this one example could justify the ENTIRE average annual $1 billion cost of public financing for some 70 years. And this is just the tip of the iceberg of savings.”

Hubbard says: “I am running in the Republican primary to spotlight the great difference between my proposals and those of Jim Jeffords and the Republican Party.  I want ALL Vermonters - Independents, Republicans, Democrats and members of all other parties to be able to vote for meaningful campaign finance reform in the upcoming Republican primary.”

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