Super PACs supporting Republican presidential candidates surpassed the amount of money raised by candidates themselves. Examples include that Mitt Romney’s campaign spend three times as much as the amount of money he raised, that Rick Santorum received a large amount of grass-roots donations. Main supporters of Mr. Romney’s are individuals and corporations in fields such as casino and mutual fund. In general, candidates become more dependent on Super PACs (New York Times).
I have several concerns about Super PACs. On the one hand, the Supreme Court rule in 2010 allows individuals, corporations, and labor unions to participate in politics. On the other hand, I worry that their expectation may be overly important compared to the public’s expectation. Because they donate so much money, they expect certain results in return. It is possible that their expectation is at odds with the rest of the people’s interest. That way, the president may have to weight his decisions considering the donors, the people, and himself. Even though it is a tradition that candidates receive large funding and that donors have expectations, Super PACs enlarge the scale on which donors can influence politics and the lack of transparency in money sources may lead to potential problems, such as corruption.
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