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Article: Enter the state.(state-subsidized financing for political parties)(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- July 31, 1999
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The tighter the restrictions on private fund-raising, the greater the likelihood that parties' or candidates' private incomes will fall short of their necessary expenditure. So in every democracy, some political finance is now provided by taxpayers. In Britain, apart from some small increases announced this week, taxpayers pay only for some token help for opposition parties in Parliament. Spain, in contrast, after a number of scandals in the early 1980s, passed a law to limit parties' private fund-raising to 5% of their state subsidy.
It is not hard to make a case for some public funding of political parties. If parties are necessary to democracy, citizens can ...