Texas Senator Ted Cruz made headlines last week when it was revealed that he had raised an eye-popping $31 million in less than a week for his presidential campaign. Kentucky Senator Rand Paul announced that he had already raised $1 million in the first day following the announcement of his candidacy. Bloomberg’s coverage of Cruz’s haul says that the presidential candidates from the two major parties are expected to raise $1.5 billion during this election cycle.
Now, to be sure, not all of this money is from personal donations. Cruz’s money bags are being stuffed full by Super PACs whose sole purpose is to get massive amounts of money into candidate’s hands. But all of the 2016 presidential candidates will get funded by Johnny and Janie Public, and Cruz and Paul will get donations from liberty-minded folks who think they are advancing freedom and the rule of the Constitution.
For those who are considering donating to a presidential candidate, I have a suggestion: don’t – for a couple of reasons. First, there’s absolutely no guarantee that presidential candidates will support the Constitution once they’re in office. In fact, despite his entirely undeserved reputation as a defender of the Constitution, Cruz has shown an alarming contempt for it when it intrudes on his policy preferences.
Even if a true constitutionalist were to get into the White House, there’s no guarantee that his (or her) policies would win the day. While Paul is certainly a more consistent advocate of the Constitution than most of his peers, his position is still in the vast minority in Washington. Even members of his own party, including supposed liberty-oriented people like Cruz, aren’t willing to go along with Paul’s more radical constitutional positions – like ending the federal ban on marijuana and a constitutional foreign policy.
As Tenth Amendment Center Founder Michael Boldin likes to say, no matter who win the White House, the federal government will be larger, spend more and be more oppressive in four years than it is today.
If you want to promote liberty with your contributions, consider donating to the Tenth Amendment Center, an organization which historian Tom Woods has said has done more than anyone in the world to advance the original, Jeffersonian understanding of the Constitution. This organization, with several ongoing national campaigns to push back against federal overreach, with successes in advancing federalism in dozens of states, operates with a skeleton crew of a few underpaid staffers and a couple dozen volunteers.
Given the budgetary and staff constrictions that TAC operates under, the amount of work and success that it has generated is absolutely astounding. The possibilities of what such an organization, which is dedicated entirely to spreading liberty through decentralization, could do with a fraction of what presidential candidates will receive over the coming months are dizzying.
Rather than transfer your funds into the abyss that is the federal elective process, consider donating to the Tenth Amendment Center. You wouldn’t continue to entrust your retirement savings to a financial planner that kept losing your money – and liberty is a much more precious commodity than dollars and cents.
