The lobbying campaign to reconstruct the presidential public financing program continues apace. Its authors have designed the bill to appeal to marginal presidential candidates of both parties; it will be less favored by incumbent presidents and skilled fundraisers like Hillary Rodham Clinton. But Congress, not third-tier candidates, have the authority to enact the bill into law.

Members of Congress know the public rejects the presidential system. The number of households checking off the box on the tax form has dropped from 28 percent in 1978 to 11 percent in 2002. It is probably under 10 percent today. Why should Congress pour more money into a program that the public has seen in action and rejected so completely?

Well, if public opinion is a problem for “reform,” coercion is the solution.

The new bill “requires the Secretary of the Treasury to issue regulations to ensure that electronic software used in the preparation or filing of individual tax returns not automatically accept or decline a check-off of taxpayer funds to the Presidential Election Campaign Fund.” The authors of the bill think this will get rid of a lot of refusals to contribute to the system. The bill also authorizes the Federal Election Commission to spend $10 million “to conduct a public education program to inform the public about the Fund and its purposes.” In other words, Congress will earmark tax dollars to persuade voters that the program is a good thing.

In a liberal democracy, public opinion should be a cause rather than an effect of laws. The new presidential taxpayer funding bill flips democracy on its head: support for the program is intended to be an effect of the law, not a cause of it.

“Reformers” have long sought to control the speech of others. It is disturbing but hardly surprising that they now seek to control public opinion when it frustrates their ambition.