Public financing of elections is a reform long advocated to reduce the dependence of political candidates on their financial contributors. Currently, the U.S. Presidential general election campaigns are largely paid for by the American taxpayers, as are primary and general election campaigns for Governor of New Jersey and Mayor of New York City.

American law allows for public financing of Presidential primary campaigns, but candidates, led by George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004, are increasingly moving away from accepting public financing because it is tied into accepting spending limits. In the battle for the 2004 Democratic Presidential nomination, first Howard Dean and then John Kerry opted out of the federal matching fund program.

Because the Democrats are increasingly becoming financially competitive with the Republicans on a national scale (the Democratic National Committee actually raised more money than the Republican National Committee in 2003-2004), it is likely that some or all of the candidates for the 2008 Democratic Presidential nomination will also opt out of public financing, as will some or all of the candidates for the 2008 Republican Presidential nomination.

Further expansion of public financing would be dependent on more members of the general public seeing the benefit of it. While the public generally likes the idea of freeing politicians from financial dependence on special interests, many citizens view the spending of money for partisan television purposes to be a low priority for governmental funds.

Other Countries

• Australia - in the federal, state and territory elections candidates for seats receive funding of about a three postage stamps in they receive more than 4% of the vote.