'Just sitting there': Why a dormant government fund got another cash infusion
A largely unused government fund intended to pay for presidential elections continues to grow with monthly taxpayer infusions — adding $327,000 last month, according to a Raw Story analysis of U.S. Treasury records.
The Presidential Election Campaign Fund has accumulated $400.9 million in taxpayer-funded money as of Nov. 30 — funds that will likely continue to sit in a bureaucratic black hole for years, Treasury records show. The fund ballooned to more than $445.6 million as of June 30, but a nearly $47.5 million disbursement for pediatric research at the National Institutes of Health of money formerly used to put on party conventions decreased the pool of idle dollars.
A once-popular resource for White House aspirants, the Presidential Election Campaign Fund hasn’t been used regularly in 15 years — but taxpayers continue checking a $3 check box that they encounter when filing their annual tax returns by the April deadline....