Because of some issue John McDonough has raised on City Life♠ I purchased a copy of Nomination and Election of the President and Vice President of the United States, 2008 Including the Manner of Selecting Delegates to National Party Conventions. That is a mouthful, but it is a Congressional Research Service report to the Committee on Rules and Administration United States Senate and it is date 2010.
Lots of good stuff in there. I had purchased, for a nominal fee, an earlier edition for an earlier election.
Here is the question. Why the high cost?
I purchased a copy with a slick cover, from Amazon, for $19.42, including shipping. It is a commercial reproduction of the original Senate report.
I checked on line, once I had the document name, and found the US Government Bookstore is selling the original US Government Printing Office (GPO) version for $54.00. Yes, that is more than twice as much.
So Uncle Sugar puts this together and sets it up to be printed and then can't print it as cheaply as some commercial firm? I am assuming that the GPO is not working on a profit.
Why is the BiblioGov Project able to do this cheaper than the GPO?&nvsp; Maybe it s the two "fold-out" pages in the GPO edition (reduced to one page in the commercial version). If that is the case, start shrinking pages.
Maybe I will ask our three down in DC. Granted, Senator Brown and Representative Tsongas are busy with elections, but I bet they still beat Senator Kerry in responding.
Regards — Cliff
♠ John McDonough has asked, as have others, about why the taxpayers pay for Primary Elections for the Parties. This is not to be confused with Preliminary Elections for local office, where a sufficient number of candidates will trigger a winnowing election to get the final field down to something the voters can easily get their arms around. One guest on City Life was allowed to suggest that Primary Elections is in the US Constitution. I don't think so.
-2 W T 10
2 comments:
Hello Cliff, it will take a retired atty to bring this to the courts. When I asked our Rep Dave Nangle is there any wind down there to eliminate Party Elections he indicated there will be no changes. So I will continue to ask why taxes are used for private elections, when the growing majority are unenrolled
John McDonough
I believe a functioning democracy requires the formation of blocks achieving "political plurism", or else chaos may reign. Public funding of the elections of these parties is an important factor in maintaining control of the process to ensure fair elections. It is in our best interest that it remains that way.
A majority of independent voters notwithstanding, the independence provides no allegiance to either of the parties, nor to themselves. If they were to establish allegiance to themselves, then they would form a political block - another party.
As it is, the independent voter has the freedom to select from the parties, or nominate some one else. However, the "someone else" has historically been shown to be not effective, as support does not rise to the level of political plurism unless those independents form a block - a political party.
And so it is.
Post a Comment