How Do We "Fix" the Inherent Problems With Elections?

By making politics less important.

Radley Balko | January 22, 2008

(Page 2 of 2)

A company normally would never risk the backlash that would come with a plan to spy on its customers. But when your biggest customer is the one asking you to do the spying, your priorities change. Government distorts proper market incentives.

Unfortunately, things are only getting worse. Federal spending now accounts for about 20 percent of our economy. Government plays a role in just about everything we do. Higher education and health care, for example, have been growing less civil and more political for years. Health care in particular is likely to become wholly and completely political in the next decade. Meaning one of the most important part of your life--your very health--may soon be subject to who's done a better job manipulating the process come Election Day.

The worse news is that we may have passed the point of no return. There's now so much at stake in our elections for so many different interests, any candidate who runs on a platform of expanding civil society and shrinking political society isn't likely to find much support. In other words, we may have reached the point where there's too much at stake for most of America to have any interest in lowering the stakes.

Radley Balko is a senior editor for reason. This article originally appeared at FoxNews.com.