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Today's Poll: Should political parties pay for their own primaries rather than taxpayers?

By Howard B. Owens
Mark Brudz

And they should pay for their own conventions too. Political parties are NOT the government.

Taxpayers directly contributed $18,248,300 to the Republican and Democratic national committees, or a total of $36.5 million, to hold their presidential nominating conventions in Election 2012. They gave similar amounts to the parties in 2008.

In addition, Congress set aside $50 million for security at each of the party conventions in 2012, for a total of $100 million. The total cost to taxpayers of the two national party conventions in 2012 exceeded $136 million.

All this and they ween't even brokered conventions, the candidates were both decided upon months before.

Sep 7, 2012, 10:27am Permalink

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