Reader Response

Long Response on Variety of Topics

Andy Wilson: First of all, let me say how much I love your newsletter. Despite what CNN may say about their Inside Politics show, this is the best political briefing in the country (although you did miss two really great articles about Tom Griffith in the Daily Herald earlier this week-- we can't all be 100% all the time!)

But today I was amazed at several of the sidebars included with the daily policy briefing on Thursday, June 16th. First of all that one of our elected officials, Rep. Dayton, felt that Limbaugh (at least 85% of the time?), Hannity and Reagan were useful to the public discourse shows me just how far down into the gutter our public discourse has gone. Where vitriol replaces reason and blind ideology trumps fact, we have a serious problem epistemologically within our society. Let me say and emphasize that I am not impugning our elected officials: merely that "even the elect [or elected in this case] will be deceived."

At first I wasn't sure what to think about Patrick Montgomery's "Grassroots Group Wants to Split Utah." Was it a joke? Obviously not, but its basic ideas have serious problems. Now, I am a proponent of smaller, more reasonable government-- I am a Jeffersonian at heart, inherent with that all of the political contradictions it brings about. I agree that Utah's austere public image, puritanical liquor laws, and high taxes and cost of business may drive business elsewhere. But the idea that "With big money and big mouths the growth of Utah is being thwarted by The LDS Church with rules on public beer sales, and other issues, that make outside concerns leery of coming to Utah, and go to areas like Boise that have a more liberal point of thought" is completely over the top. What big money? How does the LDS church have a vested financial interest in beer sales? Whose big mouths? When was the last time Gordon B. Hinckley held a press conference to decry alcohol? True, individual members (from the Legislature? Or the Eagle Forum?) of the church may do this independently of the superstructure of the church, but this is "Of the LDS church, but not in it" to rework an aphorism. If we want to talk about alcohol laws, let's answer one major question: Qui bono? Or, since Deep Throat was in the news recently, "Follow the money."

Our state makes enormous amounts of money from state-run liquor stores which constitute a monopoly on hard liquor in our state, so it seems to be in their interest to promote drinking, not curtail it. Furthermore, Coors and Budweiser can make more money in our state by overcharging for watered-down beer. Less alcohol = less time needed to distill it = greater profits. Ironically, this seems to have led to a flourishing of brew-pubs and micro-brews in Utah. I am originally from San Diego and I regularly visit my hometown. I cannot think of ONE microbrewery in all of the major San Diego area, home to more than 9 million people, of whom less than 5% are LDS. Yet I can think of several micro-brews in Salt Lake (and often go to them when I get the chance. . . not to drink, just to hang out with my Democrat friends).

And since your average consumer drinks beer in order to become at least somewhat enebriated, s/he will drink the same amount of alcohol regardless of its concentration, which means two beers instead of one and four instead of two. But a pint's a pound the world around, and so is the price of beer fairly similar state to state, not to mention that Utah gets to double dip in excise taxes because people are drinking more. So qui bono? It is the alcohol producers and the state revenue coffers that benefit from our alcohol laws. If people want to curb drinking, they should go ahead and do so. If instead we want to become a more libertarian state, as so much of the rhetoric from our elected officials seems to suggest, we should also go ahead and do so.

If we don't like high taxes, our liquor laws and the business climate we should lay the blame where it is due: our wonderful Legislature. Ultimately, they decide these laws. If we do not like the direction of our government, our taxes, and the cost of starting a business, we should stop being insane, and by insane I mean doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. We (and by this I mean residents of the state at large, not just those of you reading this rant) re-elect our state legislators usually with little more distinction between the candidates than if they have an R or D next to their name, and this is as true in Provo and West Jordan as it is in Rose Park and Kearns. This is not to say that there are not excellent legislators on the hill who truly strive to represent their constituents, but then there are those who seem to care more about a scorecard from the UEA, the Taxpayer's Association, and the Eagle Forum.

This leads me to my next point: publicly funded elections. First of all, I found both the editorial by the NY Times and the Federalist Patriot (found in Wednesday's briefing) sickening-- neither had any real concept of the ideas they were proponing nor the implications of said arguments. While it is frightening that our Congress may overturn all campaign finance law for the last 30 years in one swift stroke, the NY Times editorial came on a little too strong. Another example of the out of control liberal media establishment (now I think relegated only to the corners of the Times, The Post, and CBS News, or did i not get the memo?) and the vitriolic reactionary buffoonery of right wingers on the internet. Both failed to mention that so-called "free speech", understood by some as unlimited campaign contributions (a definition that the Supreme Court has struck down several times) is not, in fact, free. There are economic barriers to "free speech" that makes the silent majority even more silent due to the deafening roar of ideological rhetoric and attack ads on our airwaves. It's as if we find ourselves back in the Hobbesian jungle, but our powers of free speech are no longer equal-- two or three people can shout so loudly that it overtakes all other conversation and discourse. I'm not sure about anyone else, but I certainly can't afford to contribute to political campaigns or to 527s-- I had a campaign call me two weeks ago (I was on their list because I subscribed to their website, much as i do to utahpolicydaily) and i couldn't even come up with their minimum $20 pledge to help them run their ad: I simply didn't have the money in my bank account.

Then today I saw Scott Heinrich's view of campaign finance and that did it-- i was hopping mad! In principle, I agree with Scott's assessment of "Economics 101" and its applicability to our current system of financing campaigns. No doubt that more regulation does create black markets and other unintended consequences. Current campaign law and its tweaking through BCRA (McCain-Feingold) is a primary example of the law of unintended consequences. I would argue, however, that impeding the flow of money through politics is a good thing, not a bad one, but more on that later. As he spoke about Economics 101, I would like to talk about Political Science 101, Economics 110, and Human Nature 200. Firstly, the assessment that "politics is a business" is flat out WRONG and was the idea that made me get up on this soapbox.

Politics is defined as the practice of government within the polis, and Aristotle finds it to be our natural state of being as social creatures. Cicero called it "the highest calling of our souls." Locke, and therefore Jefferson and Madison specifically but also our other Founding Fathers, saw government as the place where our natural rights are protected and (to put John Stuart Mill's spin on it) the common good can be pursued. Business, however, is primarily concerned with the creation of goods and services and exchanging them for capital. Therefore, the primary end of business is capital, while the end of government is rights and the common good. Never once has any major political scientist or political philosopher turned politics into merely economics. Those who try to rationalize politics in an economic, rational-choice model like Bentham and the other Utilitarians, create an ex post facto argument which comprehends and explains everything and therefore comprehends and explains nothing. The one who has come closest to creating an economic foundation for politics, ironically, was Marx, whom I doubt Mr. Heinrich has much in common with in terms of ideology.

Economics is based on rational calculation of utility and trading goods for other goods. If we view politics as economic in nature, we would subvert the very foundation of all governmental ethics: that one could make a quid pro quo agreement of money or services for political favor. I doubt that many of us like the idea of our representatives doing this in the "smoke-filled back room." Ultimately, though, this is what the economy of politics has created. While money does not buy favors, it does buy access. Since one of the major priorities of our representatives is to get re-elected, they often "spend so much time trying to keep my job that I forgot to do my job" to borrow a line from Aaron Sorkin. This means that as of November 3rd of last year, Reps. Matheson, Bishop, and Cannon all had to begin again to raise money for their campaigns in 2006. Should our elected representatives spend their time, for which we pay their salaries through our taxes, currying favor with special interests and attending fundraisers when they could be doing the job of representing their constituents and learning about complex governmental issues? My estimation is no.

Also, I believe that it is human nature to have some degree of loyalty to those that sign their paycheck. Ultimately, a paycheck constitutes a social contract where one sells his or her time on the open market for an agreed-upon wage. Now imagine a system where you worked for McDonald's and received a paycheck from them. However, you also receive a substantially larger paycheck from the Burger King across the street. The manager of Burger King somehow has sway over your boss at McDonald's and assures you that as long as you remain on Burger King's payroll, you will keep your job at McDonald's. Now, if asked to do something that impeded the interests of McDonalds and created an advantage for Burger King, what would you do? While this seems unrealistic, it is the position we put our elected officials in every day. While they do not financially benefit from their political donations, they do gain other things such as power and prestige which are worthy in their own right. Now this is not to say that politics is a zero-sum game where the represented people lose when special interest win-- often the two meet in a sort of Hobbesian felicity of common interests.

Now imagine a system that was truly designed to do the common good. What would it look like? Would legislators represent their constituents, seeing each individual as being equal just as in the voting booth there is only one person, one vote? (unless you live in Chicago or Palm Beach, it seems) Or would they create niche tax breaks for one corporation, a licensing loophole for a trade union, and a pork barrel project for their friends in the construction industry? I propose that our goal in government should not be the unrestricted flow of money through politics. Instead, government should be a place where people come together to find the common good. Representation is paramount to economic efficiency, by which i mean how politicians receive their money, in government. I agree with Mr. Webb that McCain-Feingold has seemingly created a monster worse than the one it was trying to tame. Even once the 527s are tamed (if that is possible considering the constitutional issues of free speech involved), some other way will be found to bring the slop to the trough. Only if we completely clean the system can we get back some sense of republicanism and stem the tide of the oncoming oligarchy.

As a case study, I present Arizona. Arizona passed clean campaign laws last year, and they are the first completely publicly financed system in the country. What has this created? Well, one issue that seems to get a lot of people excited is illegal immigration. Many, from the patrician Lou Dobbs on CNN to the clinically insane Michael Savage on talk radio see it as the biggest threat to our national security. Among Arizonans, it ranks as one of their top 5 most important issues. (We would have to ask Dan Jones how it ranks here, but it seems to make its fair share of political hay locally). And so what did Arizona do? Send an invoice to the Congress for the millions of dollars they had to spend to jail illegal immigrants because of an unfunded mandate. They have also on a state level increased local law enforcement on the border and generally cracked down on illegal immigration. I argue that they were able to do this because they were free of the constraints of the special interests that profited from having an nearly open border. The government of Arizona was free to represent the true wishes of their people because of public finance. If we want to demand more accountabilty from our elected officials, we should do the same.

The fact is, economically, public financing makes sense-- any capital outlays needed would be covered by the ultimate savings in unnecessary giveaways and loopholes. We can deduce this because, logically, interest groups would not spend money on lobbying and funding candidates if they were not getting a good return on their investment. Therefore, if group A is spending $1,000,000, they must be getting at least that much back because of their relationship with the politicians. Now, do an excercise for me: think of a special interest that you hate. Think of how much money they're spending to buy access to your elected representative that you pay the salary for. Now think of another. And another. . . .how much extra tax money would you be willing to pay every paycheck to insure that your voice was heard, and not theirs? $1? $5? Maybe even only $20/ year? Just in the state of Utah, getting about $20/year per household in extra revenue is hundreds of millions of dollars. Wouldn't that be plenty? Would it be worth it? Furthermore, what is largest single campaign expenditure for any federal or statewide office? That's right, TV and radio ads. It used to be the case that our TV stations would be willing to interrupt their broadcasts to schedule time for a political event that served the public interest: no longer.

What ever happened to the concept that we, the people of the United States, own these airwaves? The government merely leases their use to private corporations through the FCC. However, since currently TV stations can charge premium dollar to run political ads (often at higher rates than what they charge their other ad buyers), they have so much to gain from the status quo and so much to lose if we reimposed the fairness doctrine and demanded that every political season the local stations give free ad or air time to political candidates for federal and statewide office. This might even be a way to reinvigorate the populace about politics. However, we as Americans would no doubt take little notice and switch back to Survivor or the newest Paris Hilton show.

We as a society often do things through government even though it would be more economically efficient to let the market do it. Why? Because that good that we want is either of precious enough value to warrant inefficiency in return for universal coverage (public education) or because the market simply is not responsive enough or the startup costs are too high to be the impetus for creating them (roads, hospitals, etc) If someone is truly so opposed to government intervention and belief that it leads to inferior quality goods and shortages, I would ask you as an act of protest to please stop driving any American made car because of the massive amounts of corporate welfare they receive and the tariffs on their competitors that the government has put in place on their behalf (not to mention the corporate welfare Japanese and German automakers receive from their governments, so don't buy them either), do not shop at Wal-Mart because of the tax breaks and local municipal funding for improved public access they often demand when building a store in a small town, and if you live in Provo or another municipality that has a public electric company owned by the city, please, for the love of all that is holy, turn off all electric appliances in your home! The problem with Adam Smith is that he is a beginning place for economics, not an end. If economics were the sole arbiter of good in society, airlines would have dropped off the face of the earth years ago. While they were heavily regulated during the 60's and 70's you didn't see the constant bankruptcies that have occurred after the airlines were de-regulated. What was more truly efficient, the "inefficient" but regulated and solvent airlines or the ones who pass their economic woes onto the taxpayers of the United States when they go bankrupt and we buy off their outstanding debt with our tax dollars? So many times "basic" Adam Smithian economics is penny-wise but pound-foolish.

Also, the argument that "politics is not open to the middle class is a red herring" is spurious. If you mention Rob Bishop and his teacher's salary as an example (forgetting, of course, his income as a lobbyist for Envirocare), I'll give you a contrary example: me. My wife is a teacher, so I know what her salary is. That and mine combined, and could I afford to run for office? Even for state legislature? I worked on a legislative race last year where we raised and spent nearly $10,000-- and we still lost! However, if I knew that by virtue of winning a primary and rallying public support around myself I could get access to public financing, I would jump at the chance to run for state legislature (obviously I have the drive for it and the political insight). Also, how about our friends in third parties who we hardly hear from? Since in some districts there are almost as many libertarians as Democrats and almost as many Greens? Or Constitution Party? Wouldn't it be great to hear about politics from all sides of the issue and not even just two?

I'll end where Scott Heinrich ends. His statement was, "Ultimately, the responsibility for the state of our political affairs derives to the people. When they feel that problems in the system are sufficient to warrant real change they will exert their prerogative to force those changes. I favor the free market approach to this. More government meddling will create new problems and exacerbate existing ones rather than solving them. Give more power and responsibility to the electorate; not less." What Scott fails to understand that this is what we are doing-- trying to invigorate people about making real change. Once upon a time, the crusaders for Abolition of slavery were just people sitting around talking about ideas with one another too. While he favors the free market, I believe I have shown the utter foolishness of understanding politics merely as a function of economics and the economic reasoning that would create less inefficiency than we have now. I could not sum up my argument any better than he did-- give more power and responsibility to the electorate; not less-- support clean government and greater representation. Quote of the day, "So this is how liberty ends: with thunderous applause." -- Star Wars