Government of Special Interests, by Special Interests and for Special Interests is what is killing American like a cancer | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This article originally appeared in the Beaufort Observer.

    For some time now we have been reflecting on a question we would summarize by asking: "what is really wrong with our government and what would it take to fix it?" We've about decided that the answer is: Get rid of the influence of special interests, and therefore get rid of the influence people with Big Money have on our government, at all levels."

    The corollary to this is Term Limits. The idea that a politician is elected and can keep getting re-elected year after year we think begins to shape how they think. If they did not believe that they could buy re-election they would not pander to the money special interest. So if we had term limits then we suspect the 90% of incumbents who are re-elected every election would change and we would get some new people with better ideas.

    A democratic republic cannot long survive as a special interest state.

    The dominance of special interest is the theme of an article by James V DeLong in this edition of The American. He says:One of the most successful linguistic hijackings ever is the Left's appropriation of the term "welfare state."

    No one opposes the most basic version of a welfare state, one that provides essential public facilities, cares for the destitute and unfortunate, educates children, and protects public health and safety. Indeed, as the Supreme Court said in 1881, during an era regarded by the Left as a dark-age trough, "It will not be denied by any one that these are public purposes in which the whole community have an interest."

    A democratic polity can bicker over the scope of these functions. Some think care for the unfortunate should go a long way in the direction of income redistribution and that protecting public health requires extensive regulation. Others are more cautious. But these disagreements, while sometimes acrid, are within the bounds of civil political contest.

    A democratic republic cannot long survive as a special interest state.

    The problem is that the concept of "welfare" has become an open, bottomless vessel into which every desire can be poured: Government takeover of the entire health and retirement systems; detailed regulation of employment; manipulation of money; subsidies for housing, education, energy, food; or anything else that strikes the fancy of some segment of the public.

    The "some segment" part is crucial, because today's welfare has ceased to be limited to that of the public generally, or to the welfare of any group that has a serious claim to special deserts. Instead, it is the welfare of some special interest that is able to capture the policy process. This may require a cover story, a fig leaf of pro bono publico justification, but these stories grow increasingly thin as the number of subsidies multiplies. They are credible only to a rationally ignorant public that is too busy tending to its own affairs to dig down even an inch. The governmental expansion created by these forces is awesome. In 1902, U.S. federal, state, and local governments spent less than 7 percent of the Gross National Product. Most (3.5 percent) occurred at the local level. States spent 0.76 percent, and the federal government controlled 2.71 percent. Now, total federal, state, and local government spending in the United States is about 42 percent. An unknown share is mandated by laws and regulations, many of which are triggered by special interests rather than by any serious public considerations. Good estimates are hard to come by, but probably at least another 15 percent of GDP goes into this maw.

    As government has grown, its functions have necessarily been divided and delegated to subunits. These become juicy targets for capture, and "welfare state" also means one in which pieces of the government are parceled out among various special interests, with each then allowed to use the power of its captive to promote private agendas through spending, regulation, taxation, and law. What we have created is not really a welfare state, it is a "Big SIS," with SIS standing for "Special Interest State." Click here to read the rest of the story.