Everyone’s familiar with the phrase, "If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it." Apparently, the U.S. House of Representatives has come up with an amendment to that well-worn cliché: If it is broke, don’t fix it…just throw it away.

Last week, the House voted to repeal public financing of presidential campaigns. While the system is definitely broken, the solution is far more nuanced than that.

The Presidential Election Campaign Fund was created in 1974 in the wake of the scandal that rocked the nation after the Watergate break-in.

While many aspects of the case have become iconic—the "plumbers" from the White House breaking into Democratic headquarters, "Deep Throat," Wood-
ward and Bernstein—few today remember what perhaps was a bigger concern, a secret slush fund fueled by huge quantities of corporate cash that funded those illegal activities. Public financing was created as a way to rein in abuses and mak...