Special Interest Lobbys and Big Government

The Washington Post has run a fascinating series of twenty-seven articles called Citizen K Street. It is best viewed as a history of Congressional lobbying for the past thirty years as viewed through the lense of one lobbyist’s career.

My impression is that the series was not run in the print version of the paper; instead, it is more like a blog, with one lengthy entry per day accompanied by photos and videos, and giving people the opportunity to comment. Some of the comments came from several of the leading figures in the articles.

Another way of looking at the series is a glorification of one particular lobbyist, and several of the commenters obviously viewed it that way. They called the lobbyist a “corporate fascist” (even though his main clients were universities) and proposed various laws that would somehow end all lobbying and venality in DC.

Lobbyist habitat: K Street in Washington.
Flickr photo by askpang.

The interesting thing to me is that the hero (or antihero) of the tale apparently invented lobbyist-initiated earmarking. Yes, Congress has earmarked funds for decades, but the earmarks were always initiated by members of Congress or by federal agencies. In this case, the lobbyist and his firm conceived the idea of finding universities and other institutions that were doing ordinary fundraising and saying, “Give us $10,000 a month, and we will convince Congress to give you $25 million.”

So who do we blame for this? The lobbyist? If so, the problem might be solved by banning lobbying or mandating more “transparency” in lobbying (which the antihero of the story supports).

Or shall we blame the universities, corporations, or whatever that hired the lobbyists? If so, the problem might be solved by forbidding public agencies from spending public funds, and strictly regulating expentitures by private corporation, on lobbying.
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Who is the enemy here?
Flickr photo by husar.

Or should we blame Congress? If so, the problem might be solved with campaign finance reform.

The problem is that none of these are to blame, at least not by themselves. Instead, the real problem is the idea of big government — the idea that government can allocate resources efficiently. Once you accept this idea, you create and support the institutions that naturally lead to lobbying firms and the groups that hire them.

If government weren’t funding agricultural research, universities wouldn’t be tempted to lobby to get “their share” of research funds. If government weren’t funding transit, transit agencies wouldn’t be tempted to lobby to get “their share” of transit funds. And so forth.

Does your city have a lobbyist? Probably. How about your transit agency? Almost certainly, at least if it is seeking funds for rail transit. Does your state highway division? Probably not, because federal highway funds are given to the states using a strict formula — each state gets a fixed amount, so they have no incentive to lobby for more. (Though they might hire a lobbyist every six years, when Congress revisits the formula.)

As a result, any effort to solve the problems of lobbying by regulating lobbyists or campaign finance are doomed to fail — just as all the campaign finance laws enacted in the last few decades have been followed by more money spent on lobbying and political campaigns.

The best solution is to shrink the size of government. The second-best solution is to take the uncertainty out of funding. If transit and other funds are distributed according to strict formulae, the federal highway funds are, then the need for lobbying is greatly diminished.

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About The Antiplanner

The Antiplanner is a forester and economist with more than fifty years of experience critiquing government land-use and transportation plans.

4 Responses to Special Interest Lobbys and Big Government

  1. msetty says:

    Without “big government” you also wouldn’t have had a coordinated system of millions of miles of roadway. Certainly the Interstate Highways would not have been built in anything near their current form. Instead there probably would be a crazy quilt patchwork of dangerous, overburdened two-lane rural roads in places that couldn’t afford to build expressways or didn’t have the potential highway traffic density to build toll roads. Certainly the railroads would have been more financially sound in the 1960’s, 1970’s, and 1980’s, to what political effect one could only speculate.

  2. StevePlunk says:

    While we can judge the interstate highway system something of a success we must also realize it was built in a different era. The changes in our federal government from the fifties and sixties to today make it impossible to connect that success to what we have today.

    A close look at highway construction now shows we could not come anywhere near building a similar system of roads. The inefficiencies have become so great and the institutional corruption so widespread government works projects in general are failures.

  3. MSetty,

    Without big government we would have had tollways. Considering that the Interstate Highway System was built entirely with user fees, those tollways would probably have been pretty close to the Interstate system. Perhaps there would not have been four-lane roads in North & South Dakota, but in most other places, yes.

    The big impact of big government on the railroads was not the Interstates but regulation which began in the 1890s and became very strict in 1907. Without that regulation the railroad map would look very different today. But would there be less highways and more passenger trains? As much as I love passenger trains, I doubt it.

    But I am willing to give up big government and accept the consequences. Are you?

  4. Tammi Diaz says:

    Voters Voted for Improvement in the Transit System not the Destruction of the Bus System. UTA needs to get Accessible Vans and Small Buses to go into neighborhoods to help Encourage Motorists to take the Bus, to take Individuals to the Main Bus Route and Trax. Gas Prices Sky Rocketed. UTA needs to work on Barrier Free, Shelters and also Increase the Frequency of Buses. Bus Rapid Transit would work as good has Trax,
    there would not be the CONSTRUCTION that goes into Trax
    the Bus would be in it own Lane. UTA is in the process of trying to get other ENTITIES to the Transportation of the Disabled and Elderly, it is very likely Property Taxes would be Increased. John Inglish General Manager $266,614 Bonus $39,860 Other Incentives $60,526 Total $100,386, there are 9 more High Paid Executive Paid that receive Huge Salaries and Huge Bonuses all at Tax Payer Expense. Transit Riders Union call (801)688-0810
    or Email me: tammidiaz1962@hotmail.com : You can go to transitridersunion@blogstotcom

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