Barack Obama became president of the United States in 2008 with the support of about $2 billion. (Because the presidential election is a two-year cycle, this means that the cost of promoting Obama to the Presidency was approximately $1 billion annually.)
Campaign finance “reformers” routinely decry “money in politics” and push for government controls on American political ad spending.
But a new report by the General Accounting Office (GAO) finds that the U.S. government spends approximately $1.5 billion ANNUALLY on public relations firms. See here.
Such government spending is not subject to campaign finance laws.
