What do "free elections" cost now?

[David Lockmiller]

(11-05-2024 12:30 PM)Gene C Wrote:  

(11-05-2024 11:27 AM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  from my thread titled "RE: It’s a Free Country. For How Much Longer?"

In Lincoln's time, the cost of national elections were minimal. Candidates made speeches (oftentimes, debate speeches) to public audiences. And, then national newspapers and magazines reported those speeches to the American citizens.

Now, one hundred sixty years later: $16 Billion Will Be Spent in the 2024 Election. (November 1, 2024 headline in U. S. News and World Report.)

That's a drop in the bucket compared to our national debt currently at $35 Trillion dollars +
National Debt Tracker: American taxpayers (you) are now on the hook for

$35,866,603,223,541.48 as of 11/4/24 according to Fox News
That's $35.8 Trillion dollars

Speaking of "drops in the bucket," the Pew Research Center reported five related "facts" regarding the National Debt:

1. For several years, the nation’s debt has been bigger than its gross domestic product, which was $26.13 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2022.The federal government’s total public debt stood at just under $31.46 trillion as of Feb. 10, 2024, according to the Treasury Department’s latest daily reckoning.