The ironic thing is that they justify the appropriation for the conventions is needed to “help defray the costs”. Defray them from whom? It’s just taking from one account and putting it in another… and we’re funding all the accounts, anyway.

The political party convention spending is outrageous. I hate how closely the two major parties have woven their way into the government. At an organizational level, they are really no different than any other private group. That they are awarded such heaping amounts of money from the public by way of the government is disgusting. If they want to have the big parties and events they hold, they ought to pay for them the way other private organizations should by raising the money themselves rather than collecting handouts via forced taxation of the public.

Both parties are guilty of pork spending. When the Republicans controlled Congress they spent on projects in their own states to help their chances of maintaining/growing their majority. I really wish there was a strong, viable movement that cut this type of spending back in a truly bipartisan fashion. And once that was accomplished, I’d gladly support legislation to disentangle the two parties from the government and force them back to what they really should be, private political organizations, rather than what they’ve made themselves into as public government organizations.