Over 10 billion dollars was spent on ads in the 2024 election- up 1 billion from 4 years ago (according to NPR). I suggest doing more debates/town halls, spend less on ads, and take a percentage of that money to fix problems people care about.
A clear agenda must be stated when campaigning. A candidate would list at least 5 things that could be done with enough funding whether they win or not along with a clear plan on how the money will be spent, timeline, etc. When an individual donates, they would be given the option to choose a percentage that can go directly to funding the project of their choice. For example, if I donate $20, I could choose 25% to go to helping homeless vets and 25% to go towards making sure kids have healthy food. The campaign would be left with $10 to spend on commercials or whatever else.
This would work great with local elections- agenda could list fixing potholes, giving teachers a bonus, funding for a new fire engine, building a park, etc. Things that would have a daily impact on citizens lives and would have a chance to be accomplished whether the candidate wins or not without using taxpayer money or making room in the budget.
This could also be done when paying taxes. Give 10 options and let us be in control of a certain percentage of the money we are forced to give. This would work great for polarizing issues like abortion or wars- folks can fund what they believe in and know their hard earned money isn’t going to something they disagree with. At the very least, this could help create a democratic budget and perhaps those in office will think twice about spending large amounts of money on things the majority of citizens weren’t willing to allocate their own money to.
This will be a true test to find out what Americans -and the candidates-actually care about.