America just spent more on Halloween than on all 2016 elections

Halloween has come and gone, leaving us with extra decorations, way too much candy and a sobering realization: Halloween is expensive! Americans spent more than $9 billion on costumes, candy and other holiday treats this year — an 8.3 percent increase from last year’s previous record of $8.4 billion.

And it’s only a drop in the ocean compared to Christmas spending. End-of-year holiday shopping is expected to exceed $1 trillion. This doesn’t even take into account the untold millions — perhaps even billions — of dollars advertisers will spend between October and December. From spooky movie trailers to Christmas-themed commercials, America’s airwaves will be flooded with ad after ad after ad.

It’s an eye-popping amount of money spent for two or three days on the calendar. And it’s frightening how much more Americans spend on Halloween — let alone Christmas — than on each two-year election cycle.

Election 2016’s final price tag — the heftiest in US history — was about $6.8 billion for all federal elections (and an estimated $1 billion is double-counted — tallied once when the PAC gets the money and again when the candidate receives it). That’s substantially less than all of the Snickers bars and zombie costumes bought this Halloween. It’s also less than 1 percent of what Americans will spend stuffing their stockings and decorating their trees in December.

But if Halloween candy and Christmas-toy commercials were swapped with political ads, the left would be outraged. Where’s the “end money in consumerism” campaign? Why do anti-speech liberals accept the fact that major advertisers inundate American consumers with all types of commercials, yet lament a Koch-bought tax-reform ad?

When it comes to candy, toys and politics, Americans understand they have a choice: Tune in or ignore the noise. All commercial advertising is simply information — however well or poorly packaged — meant to encourage or dissuade the audience from buying a product. As consumers, the choice rests with us.

The same goes for political advertising, despite the left’s fearmongering. End Citizens United, a left-wing political-action committee, plans to spend $35 million on the 2018 elections — up from $25 million in 2016 — to restrict political spending.

Consumer ads flood our economy to the tune of billions of dollars, yet there’s no visceral reaction to large corporations promoting their goods and services. We simply accept it as a way of life, and we should. These ads are an integral part of our free-market system, in which information is conveyed to consumers who freely choose a Snickers or a Milky Way.

But if a group of citizens bands together and spends $1 million on a political ad, the acceptable response is outrage? The same logic applies: Politics ads are an integral part of our democratic system, in which voters must make informed choices in who runs the country.

Do we really want the government — any government — to control our speech? Why should any individual get to decide what information you can and cannot be exposed to?

Will anti-speech elites decide which toy commercials are acceptable and which aren’t? Should Lego ads be banned as foreign speech, while matchbox cars pass the test?

There’s no harm in another tax-reform ad — or an ECU spot, for that matter. In the words of Evelyn Beatrice Hall: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

Alas, the anti-speech movement is grounded in a simplistic, insulting assumption: Americans are just too stupid to think for themselves. In the left’s eyes, our votes will always follow the money. Therefore, it’s up to liberal activists to control the flow of information and censor speech as they deem fit.

Don’t fall for it. Whether it’s a commercial pushing the season’s must-have toy or a political ad for or against a candidate, the choice is still yours.

Starving the messenger of the ability to deliver a message is antithetical to a society that values freedom of choice — whether it’s candy or candidates.

Originally published by The New York Post.