Ever since buzz started hitting the internet about the new Federalist Party, there have been people reaching out to me consistently asking how to donate. The quick answer is, “don’t, at least not yet.”
There are reasons that I’ll get into shortly about why we’re considering not taking donations at all, but let’s start with the longer answer about how to at least pledge right now. The party set up a pledge page that allows members to promise future donations without having to send money now or give any financial information such as credit card data. It’s important that we get an understanding of how much we’ll be able to collect if and when we do start collecting, so getting semi-committed pledges is the bast way to do it.
One of the important premises behind the Federalist Party is that we believe in the power of the market and the individuals driving it over the power of government which often hampers more than it helps. Solutions for the majority of problems Americans face come best when they’re provided by the private sector. That’s not universal; we wouldn’t want a private military as our primary national defense, for example, but when it comes to most needs, if the government stepped out of the way and allowed people to solve problems in lieu of having their tax dollars wasted through government programs, everyone would be happier.
The challenge is that Americans have been brainwashed into believing that government should be solving the problems directly. This wasn’t always the case. It was less than a century ago when the people believed in their own abilities more than the ability of government to fix their problems. The Great Depression and subsequent solutions started the shift away from this mentality and by the 1960s, the people were much more heavily dependent on the government. The irony is that the problems that initiated this shift were created as a result of the government trying to interfere too much in private affairs, but that’s a conspiracy theory to unpack at another time.
Because we believe that private organizations can outperform public ones, we are strongly considering running the national party essentially as a business. Rather than file it as a tax-exempt entity operating off of funds that weren’t earned but rather begged from the people, we are considering earning our funds at the national level.
As the state level, this isn’t possible, and that’s fine. The strongest tenet of this party is that it should be able to operate with the same mentality that we would run the country once we have our officials in office: separation of powers between the state party organization and the national entity. While the states and individual candidates will still have to follow the rules in order to get on ballots and acquire voter lists, the national organization will be free to operate with the flexibility that comes from not having a dependence on donations or a tax exempt status.
Again, this is all still under consideration, which is why accumulating pledges is so important. If, after looking at the legalities and logistics, we come to the conclusion that a national party structure operating as a corporation will work, we’ll take that path. We would rather earn the party’s revenue rather than beg for it or accept federal funds. We will still maintain all of the mandated transparencies associated with 527 tax exempt organization, but we will pay taxes. Why should we not pay taxes and beg money from people who do pay taxes? That’s not the American way, nor is it the Federalist way, but it’s the way that every other party has chosen. We aren’t like every other party.
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