Dinosaur Conventions: Maybe it’s time to end the subsidies for these overblown extravaganzas

‘The closest thing to eternal life is a government program,” Ronald Reagan once said. I suspect that today he might single out the $136 million in taxpayer subsidies that go to the two major parties for their national conventions. Established in the 1970s when people thought conventions might still decide something, the subsidies keep flowing and are even indexed for inflation. They now amount to welfare for corporate and union interests and the political class — providing the infrastructure for wheeling, dealing, and frolicking.

Few people suggest that the parties should abandon conventions completely, but the subsidies prop up an archaic structure that needs retooling.
“Some pundits lament the demise of the old conventions,” writes Michael Barone, co-author of The Almanac of American Politics. “But they couldn’t be revived without banning long-distance telephone, the Internet, and jet travel.”

 ‘The closest thing to eternal life is a government program,” Ronald Reagan once said. I suspect that today he might single out the $136 million in taxpayer subsidies that go to the two major parties for their national conventions. Established in the 1970s when people thought conventions might still decide something, the subsidies keep flowing and are even indexed for inflation. They now amount to welfare for corporate and union interests and the political class — providing the infrastructure for wheeling, dealing, and frolicking.

Few people suggest that the parties should abandon conventions completely, but the subsidies prop up an archaic structure that needs retooling.
“Some pundits lament the demise of the old conventions,” writes Michael Barone, co-author of The Almanac of American Politics. “But they couldn’t be revived without banning long-distance telephone, the Internet, and jet travel.”

Read more: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/315729/dinosaur-conventions-john-fund