[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 27 (Tuesday, February 12, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1175-S1176]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 H.R. 1

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, on one final matter, last week the 
House began the hearing process on Speaker Pelosi's signature bill, 
H.R. 1, the Democrat Politician Protection Act. I have already touched 
on several of its outlandish and problematic provisions. What I want to 
do today is focus on one corner of the craziness. It is the wild idea 
that what American politics today is really missing is a big taxpayer 
bailout of political campaigns, attack-ad makers, and campaign 
consultants.
  For everyone who is now convinced they must have misheard what I just 
said, let me say five of those words again: taxpayer bailout for 
political campaigns.
  It is really something. Democrats have spent months, if not years, 
crafting this sprawling, 500-plus page Federal takeover of our 
political speech and our elections. They had all the time in the world 
to carefully choose each provision and tailor their political strategy, 
but even after all that, my colleagues in the House Democratic 
conference are so Washington-centric in their thinking and so

[[Page S1176]]

happy to tax and spend other people's money that it never occurred to 
anyone that maybe the American people wouldn't love the idea of their 
own tax dollars being redistributed to political campaign consultants. 
It never occurred to them that the American people might not like to 
have their tax money redistributed to political consultants. This is 
how out of touch with taxpayers the modern Democratic Party has become.
  They saw all these proposals to take the American people's tax 
dollars and funnel them into more attack ads, yard signs, and telephone 
calls, and thought, what a great idea. We will put that in. The 
Democrat Political Protection Act would do this in several different 
ways. There would be a new Washington, DC-run voucher program so that 
would-be political donors could simply ask for chunks of taxpayer money 
and then hand it out to the campaigns they favor. There would also be a 
brandnew, sixfold matching program for certain donations. The Federal 
Government would literally come in--sort of the way some businesses 
match their workers' charitable contributions--and use the American 
people's money to match certain campaign contributions sixfold. In 
other words, millions of dollars would be available for each candidate 
who comes along asking for his or her share of the taxpayer loot.
  Keep in mind--this would put each taxpayer on the hook for financing 
the candidates and campaigns they personally disagree with. They will 
take our money and give it to people we are not for. If Democrats have 
their way, citizens won't just have to sit through television 
commercials railing against the candidate they plan to vote for; now 
they would also have the pleasure of bankrolling the ads. You can sit 
there in front of the TV screen and watch your tax dollars at work 
supporting a person you are going to vote against. People are going to 
love that.
  When you ask Democrats why exactly they would propose something as 
absolutely ludicrous as a massive, new, taxpayer-funded bailout of the 
permanent political class, sometimes they make vague claims that 
problems in American politics would go away if only we took more power 
out of the people's hands and shipped it here to the Nation's Capital. 
The evidence suggests they are dead wrong on this. Research suggests 
that jurisdictions--and there are a few of them--that have matching-
fund systems in many cases also have rampant corruption, 
misappropriation, and waste. There are numerous examples that there is 
still plenty of corruption and wrongdoing in those systems--not exactly 
a surprise outcome when you centralize more money and power through 
government channels.
  Public financing doesn't appear to change the playing field between 
challengers and incumbents in any way either. Here is how one 
University of Wisconsin political scientist summed it up: ``The people 
who propose these systems often oversell them.''
  There are no apparent benefits, significant new costs, and they want 
to stick taxpayers with the bill. This is just another one of the 
Democrat Politician Protection Act's greatest hits. I will have more in 
the future.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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