Political Collusion

"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public..." - Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations

One of the central political problems is not the confict between Republicans and Democrats, but the conflict between politicians and people.

• The incumbent protection acts (campaign finance reform)
• The incumbent slush funds (earmarks)
• Opaque and half-hearted ethics investigations
• The foot-dragging on transparency (Executive and Congressional)
• The legislative bundling process which allows politicians to pass unworthy legislation by bundling it with more popular legislation (Omnibus bills, reconciliation process, non-germane amendments, earmarks, etc).

We have a crisis of politicial collusion.  Just as Adam Smith (and Public Choice Theory) predicted, our politicians create legislation, rules and processes that amount to a conspiracy to protect themselves.  They collude against the public.

This is not new and it is not partisan.

• Congress has long exempted itself from the rules it applies to everybody else (e.g., OSHA, FOIA).  Congress exempts itself from the oversight and accounting practices that it applies to businesses, and we end up with a budget process that is not transparent and politicians who are not accountable.
• The Obama administration believes torture was committed and the international laws by which the US abides have been violated.   And yet, rather than pursue investigations and perhaps prosecutions, President Obama says "Nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past", protecting both Republicans and Democrats who might be inconvenienced by an investigation.
• Sen. Stevens and Rep. Jefferson were generally slow-rolled and excused through the investigative process.  President Clinton was given a slap on the wrist and all hell broke loose over him getting that.  Abusive police officers and judges tend to get defended/excused for misconduct, or just minor administrative punishments.  The Milwaukee police chief openly flouts the law, and the Mayor defends him.  As happens with so many questionable and/or indefensible politicians, the "aw heck, let's just let bygones be bygones" tendency ultimately wins.
• If the Senate considered a $50 million earmark for a musuem in Nevada as a standalone piece of legislation, it would almost certainly fail 98-2.  98 Senators simply would not be able to justify spending the countries money on parochial favors.   And yet, if we had a piece of legislation spending $50 million for a musuem in every state ($2.5 billion total), it would likely pass by an overwhelming margin.   None of the expenditures are any more worthy the the musuem that failed 98-2, but the politicians have colluded to buy more votes. 

This is, of course, all done For Your Own Good.   But Adam Smith also said, “I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.”

If Republicans want to rebuild their credibility, they might start by putting a stop to some of this political collusion.