Blogging tax deductable contribution?

More efforts to stifle free speech and exchange of ideas. The wizards on the Federal Election Committee sure don't understand free. They want to start calling blogging a quanifiable-contribution to political campaigns.

OK. Let's start looking at all the other free stuff that people use and exchange that should, under the FEC "paradigm", be reported:

Oxygen

Water

Volunteer hours

Thinking

Speaking

Let's get real! If someone is using a blog to connect to site, this is no different than someone writing an editorial.

This is free speech! It should not be regulated as a contribution.

A better solution would be to look at the nature of the blog that connects: Are there paid ads on that blog site? The ads on the blogger's site are what is to be looked at, if anything.

Leave the free-blogging community alone. If they have no ads related to the campaign, and there is no money transferred between the blogger and the political appointee, then so state.

But blogs that are getting financial backing or money for blogging, should be required to disclose that, with penalties for not doing so.

As a closing note, when someone sends a letter to a Congressman in DC, that letter is not a political contribution. It is not an asset, but an expense.

Perhaps what is really needed are some CPAs who can help out Washington with their budgets. There's a difference between an asset and a liability.

Talk to Paul Krugman. He knows the difference.