Mr. Ackerman and Ian Ayres write with a certain contempt, “The Supreme Court says that Bloomberg has a constitutional right to spend unlimited money out of his own pocket…” Yes, Bloomberg has this right. He earned this money himself, and he did it without destroying the environment or mistreating any sweat shop worker. As citizens, we are free to spend our money on any legal activity, and spending money on a political campaign is allowed in the First Amendment. But while having Mayor Bloomberg spending his money upsets Ackerman and Ayers, these very same men have no problem spending your money: “Give every voter a special credit card account containing $25 that they can spend at any time during presidential election campaigns. Voters could use these cards at local ATMs whenever they liked to send their "Patriot Dollars" to the candidate they favor for president.” Please take notice of the imperative, “Give…” Imperatives carry with them an implied “you” unless otherwise a noun of address is added. Who is this mystery “you” whose money Ackerman and Ayers look to distribute? Their implied answer is, of course, the governments. But the government does not own the money; it collects it for the expressed purpose of servicing national and local needs.

The American public does not need a middleman (and a rather ineffectual one at that) to redistribute $25.00 per citizen. If a person wishes to contribute to one or many campaigns, one is free to do so. If the government wishes to lower our tax burden to allow greater freedom of economic choices, please do so. Many citizens may choose to spend the extra money on campaigns or even studying campaign issues. But Ackerman and Ayer’s position is risible, so I truly hope their argument is facetious, though I admit the irony was lost on this reader.

I had the same problem, wondering if these jokers could actually be serious. It seems they are; they've written a book pomoting this bone-headed scheme. Sure, let's give $3 billion to "qualifying candidates" and march toward egalitarian utopia. "Patriot dollars", forsooth!!

Under the current tax-and-spend regime, there is ZERO connection between what the government spends and what it collects.

Adding a special currency, aka, patriot dollars, would be inflationary, of course, but only inflationary to a special sector of the economy, aka advertising.

This would give more political power to the poor, as intended. I certainly have no intention of spending a dime on politics, nor do I suspect does anyone with less money than I.

Like, it would reduce the political power of those making 100k-500k.

But, would it truly reduce the people with "fuck you" money, like a bill gates, a warren buffet, a rupert murdoch? Of course not. Injecting massive amounts of money into the campaign process will create new ways to make money for the very very rich. That would be the inevitable unintended consequence.