Here’s
how I think it works.
Someone
doesn’t give a max donation one year, say 2012. The difference between
what they gave and the maximum is recorded as “debt.” So this guy
“owes” them $2,500.
He
gives 33,400 but they take out $2,500 to apply to the “debt” and
retroactively add it to a year he didn’t max out. This frees him up for
another 2,500 in the current year.
Depending
on how corrupt they are, they could be free to collect all the “debt”
from multiple previous years. This could be tens of millions of dollars
they have effectively raised their total maximum fund raising by for
this election.
Someone
who is in “debt” for not donating for the past 3 years could get in 4
times the maximum donation for this year, the very important election
year.
Wasserman’s
spread sheet with the two different $ columns covers 2013, 14, 15. We
can assume many Democrats maxed out for the 2012 election, but they
would have “debt” from the less important years they may not have given
as much that could be taken advantage of now.
