campaign finance

I can't say what the effect of the campaign finance decision by the Supreme Court will be. But it seems to me that there is a middle road between the two extreme positions on this issue. One side argues that corporations should be restricted in how much money they can spend on political advertising. The other side says there should be no restrictions. One third way on this issue is to allow unlimited expenditures by corporations on political advertising, but require that each ad conclude with, "This message was approved and paid for by Ford Motor Company," and the name of the company and its logo shown on the screen for say 5 seconds. It seems to me that that would preserve the freedom of speech guaranteed in the first amendment while also guaranteeing that viewers know the origin of any ad. We already have this requirement in place for ads run by campaigns; why should independent expenditures be exempt? (This would also apply to ads run by the parties.) I think that would protect against the most virulent kinds of attacks and force the discourse to stay somewhat civil.

An interesting article on this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/26/opinion/26baran.html?th&emc=th