Where Policy is Going Wrong
As one looks at the political landscape of America, it would be hard to miss the simple fact that whether Republicans win or Democrats win, the American people lose. We have seen an attempt at Social Security reform that looked more like a trillion dollar stock broker commission, or health care reform that looks more like a trillion dollar premium check to the insurance industry. Good ideas, or even bad ideas, are consistently turned into policies that hand out cash, directly or indirectly, to the biggest players in the game. This happens because with respect to the political system of electing politicians in America, this program has been brought to you by the largest big money interests and industry lobbies in the world.
Statism, libertarianism, liberalism, conservatism, and every other “ism”, are shams in this environment because they are all talk, and when it comes to action, they spin sponsored legislation as if they were honest policies matching the rhetoric these people used during their campaign. The reality is that the most significant legislation in America either pays or protects various election sponsoring industries, or retards their potential competition.
There’s a name for this phenomenon, but we never hear it. Instead, we hear about the evils of liberalism or conservatism, we hear about how Democrats or Republicans are so wrong, and why, using concepts like self-reliance, or lack thereof, social responsibility, or lack thereof. And the sad reality is that none of these “ism’s” are inherently bad, and there are policies where each of these ideological positions could result in successful policies. There are people and groups that really could not care less whether policies achieve the stated goals, only that they serve the interests of their sponsors, and these sponsors drive policy more than any ideology ever has.
It’s called Regulatory Capture, and it is as pervasive as it is invisible. It is the hand that feeds. And worse, it is not just the hand that feeds the political system, on both sides, but also the hand the feeds the news/talk industries, as well as the think tank business.
The policies of Regulatory Capture can appear statist or laissez faire, authoritarian or libertarian, and often can be spun as being all of the above. Maybe President’s can be immune, maybe not, but is doesn’t matter, since Presidents don’t make laws. Maybe GWB really wanted to improve the Social Security system, but what was bouncing around Congress was a plan to improve money management fees on Wall Street. Maybe Obama really does want to make healthcare work for everyone, but what’s bouncing around in Congress seems more like what the insurance industry would write if they were told that something that seems significant needs to be passed by Congress and they get to make sure it just seems significant, but allows them to maintain the essential status quo.
Regulatory Capture can be regulation, it can be deregulation, it can be restrictions on business that make it difficult for small players to enter markets, it can be the elimination of restrictions that hide the activities of industries from the public eye or official review. But the common element that policies structured by Regulatory capture is that there is absolutely zero interest in accomplishing any policy goals and a total focus on accomplishing the goals of the sponsor. It doesn’t guarantee the failure of any given policy, but sure it makes failure more likely.
The most frustrating aspect of Regulatory Capture is that is so very well protected. The ability of lobbies to sponsor your Congressman is protected under the First Amendment as validated by Buckley v Valeo, the SCOTUS case that determined that money IS speech, and therefore the ability of lobbyists to spend cannot be restricted. So every four years, these various groups spend about four billion dollars and are rewarded with hundreds of billions in revenues, either through protection of their revenues, direct government largess, or other policies that help these sponsors maintain their edge.
I can’t support policies that preclude Americans from using their dollars as a megaphone, but I can support policies that prevent those megaphones from being so loud. That’s why I support public financing of elections. Let we the taxpayer foot that four billion of direct campaign support for candidates rather than allowing interest groups to use that funding to purchase policy. They can go out and pay for candidates that refuse public financing or they can pay for their own issue campaigns, but we could take these groups out of the equation for a new generation of politicians who want the freedom to be responsive to their constituents, not their sponsors.
Our system is too complex and requires too much faith in our institutions to do away with regulation, and it is too easy to manipulate to allow lobbyists to write laws. We can’t eliminate influence, nor would we want to, but we can, and must, reduce how that influence is applied, and how effective it can be in the current environment.
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