| (www.ForYourBrainOnly.hk) Compensate Running: |
How to compensate (s)he who runs (for) a public office
Candidates who can garner above a certain minimum number of votes should get a realistic, not a tokenic, amount of financial assistance/ rebate, per vote garnered, from the public purse. The said amount should be calculated, realistically, to stripe the winners' (or losers') needs for conglomerated, even worse, hidden and/or foreign, fundings and hence to void the to be ensued puppeting (invariably to the public's detriments, it goes without saying). Have a procedure for a prospective candidate to garner pre-commited votes before officially launching ones' campaign so as to let one to realistically assess one's chance. Of course, the said pre-commited votes should be set free should the for-candidate fail to register to run by a deadline. This said procedure also affords a means for the influential to build up one's political bargaining power overtime, if not immediately.
The most costly component for mounting a public campaign is of course the “air times”, “paper columns” or the likes. News media get contents free from public sources; while, the public incur expenditures, directly or indirectly, one way or another, in labour or in kind, to fill media's time and pages, especially during political campaigns. Hence, it is not unreasonable to mandate news media to supply blocks of air-times, paper-columns, or the likes, free.
As when one a successful candidate takes over a public office, the G.I. Stipends would be too much should (s)he just use the chance to milk the public teat; too little should (s)he manage to ameliorate the society at large. Unfortunately, the awarded benefits for holding a public office in accordance with the existing scheme do not justify the (opportunity-) costs for seeking and holding one, for the truly calibrated.
Legislate big corporations who remunerate top executives handsomely to pay into a Public Office Fund just as handsomely. At the end of a term, public office holders can propose an emolument plan for extra-stipends remunerations to themselves, to be drawn from the said Fund, for the public to vote on, as a collateral matter, when voters cast their ballots for the next election. Too greedy, unjustified, let the voters decide; one might very well lose in the re-election as well as in the call for extra emolument.
