TAXES FOR CAMPAIGNS? PUBLIC SAYS NO

If you didn't think there was enough to worry about, consider this harbinger of the collapse of western civilization: So few American are checking the $3 campaign-finance box on their income-tax returns that presidential candidates will probably have to fight the primary battles without all the federal money they are entitled to receive.

It's just the latest setback for a system set up after Watergate to provide partial taxpayer financing to presidential hopefuls in exchange for the candidates agreeing to strict primary spending limits. The main problem is that each year fewer taxpayers are earmarking $3 of their taxes for the presidential campaign fund that provides the matching funds for candidates. Under the law, the government matches dollar-for-dollar the first $250 of each individual contribution a qualified presidential primary candidate receives. In addition, the government provides each of the two major parties' nominees full financing for the general election.

Only 13 percent of taxpayers checked off the box in 1996, the last year for which figures are available, according to the Internal Revenue Service. That was down from the year before and well below the high of 29 percent in 1978.

Analysts see the decline as part of overall voter apathy and disdain. "It's a general feeling of, `Why should I encourage them?'" said Marshall Wittmann, director of congressional relations for the Heritage Foundation. "It's also reflected in lower voter turnout as well."

Well, yes. Disdain is undoubtedly part of it. It is possible, as well, to read such developments as lower voter turnout and the collapse of the checkoff as evidence of contentment. Many citizens who choose not to bother themselves with voting are expressing a form of contentment with the status quo. In the formerly communist countries around the world, voter turnout was routinely reported at above 98 percent. Anyone want to trade places with their election choices?