End Political Welfare Programs, a.k.a. Primaries

The race for the Democratic Party presidential nomination has put the nearly DOA Oregon primary back on a hot news burner. However, for all its current glorification, let’s call all tax-payer funded primaries what they actually are: Political Welfare. Those who rail against corporate welfare, and I am one of them, should push to terminate public funding of these political popularity contests. No one should be forced to support political speech with which they disagree. Thus, privatizing the primaries could help hold the line on government spending and would respect First Amendment rights (the flip side of freedom of speech is having the freedom not to support ideas, especially political ideas, you don’t embrace). Those who wish to run for public office should do so through a charitable system of private, voluntary support.