"Have you noticed how often pundits will refer to various pieces of legislation these days as the "No Lobbyist Left Behind Act"? Transportation, defense, energy, farm, and all manner of authorization and appropriations bills routinely serve as vehicles for organized plunder of the public treasury by means of earmarks, subsidies, preferential tax breaks, tariffs, or trade preferences. Even the original idea of "No Child Left Behind" has proven to be a problematic phrase disguising an ineffective, yet expanding, federal bureaucracy and the state monopoly in education that it supports.

It is now pretty much accepted that anyone who hires the right lobbyist, accesses the right legislator, and deploys the right amount of campaign contributions is entitled to whatever bit of largesse the legislative, appropriations, and regulatory processes can cough up. Let's be clear what is going on here. A select few of our fellow citizens cut a deal with a member or members of Congress to spend other people's tax dollars usually without the benefit of transparent or open debate. The spending is rarely part of any kind of systematic federal policy focused on democratically determined priorities. The expenditures or interventions are ad hoc and parochial, driven by rank economic or political self-interest."

Get the Story:
G. Tracy Mehan: How to Tell Good Lobbyists From Bad (The American Spectator 6/22)

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