The K Street Presidency
I have to say I've never quite understood the old return the campaign contributions gambit. What's the message supposed to be? "I only let myself get de facto bribed by people who aren't under suspicion of de jure bribery," I guess. The salient question about the Bush administration, however, is this: Are there any policy issues on which he's failed to come down on the same side as the weight of campaign contributions? It's easy to think of situations where conservative ideology and K Street cash point in the same direction, but as Jon Chait wrote some time ago the really instructive case is when money and ideology point in opposite directions:
Bush's defenders would no doubt maintain that it's only natural that a conservative president regularly sides with business, which usually desires less taxation and regulation. It's true that, in most instances, conservative ideology and business self-interest both militate toward the same end. Yet no disinterested conservative ideology would take the form of Bush's actual mix of policies. His energy bill, proposing massive new production subsidies, earned disdain from free-market purists like National Review and the Cato Institute. Bush has quietly acquiesced to congressional pork, declining to veto a single spending bill. Meanwhile, he has cut funding for programs--such as recovery of loose radioactive material--that many conservatives support but that lack powerful constituencies. Back in the 1980s, Ronald Reagan's Budget Director David Stockman pledged to attack "weak claims, not weak clients." Bush has done just the opposite.
One of the great perversities of Bush's domestic policy is that, when he does deviate from conservatism, he follows this same pattern--that is, he tacks left not because it is in the broad public interest but because it will please a narrow but powerful special interest. Take, for example, the three domestic policy decisions for which he has taken the most flak from free-market conservatives: support for farm subsidies and for tariffs on steel and textiles. In each case, Bush acquiesced to the demands of a small, organized minority whose interests clearly run contrary to those of the majority. Studies have found that every job saved by tariffs costs consumers $800,000 in higher prices. Farm subsidies are even less justifiable: They artificially deluge the agriculture industry and transfer money to relatively affluent farmers by boosting the price of food, which disproportionately hurts the poor. Note that in all those instances Clinton managed to stand up to the special pleaders, despite the fact that acquiescing would have been more compatible with his ideology than it was with Bush's.
The 2003 Medicare bill, at the time Chait was writing just a glimmer in PhRMA's eye, has proven to be the biggest example yet. My favorite example has been the way the administration has, over a period of years, completely ruined our relationship with Canada and tried to make lumber more expensive for American citizens all on behalf of America's relatively minor tree cutting-down lobby. Also noteworthy has been the administration's stance on immigration, where he's run considerable risks with his base in order to try and get business friendly policy adjustments put in place. With or without Jack Abramoff, money has always talked in Washington, but it screams so loudly in the Bush White House that counting up contribution checks has essentially replaced real policy analysis altogether.
Comments (14)
The reason you return the campaign contributions is so that your paymasters have more money to contribute to your legal defense fund . . .
January 5, 2006 8:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why not donate it to feed and house the homeless? Of if that's too compassionate, at least buy armor for personnel carriers?
January 5, 2006 8:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
" I have to say I've never quite understood the old return the campaign contributions gambit."
The calculation is pretty simple - returning the contribution beats the alternative.
January 5, 2006 8:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
There are some cases where the WH has sided with social conservatives over some business contributers before, most notably in the perpetual shelving of plan B OTC approval.
January 5, 2006 8:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Show me the money!!!
For the love of bling. What's the point of attaining a position of power if you can't reap the rewards? What the hell, they are neocons and not conservatives so why should anyone be surprised about their very "non-conservative" tendencies...
January 5, 2006 9:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
It is almost slapstick humor to see the politicians suddenly become allergic to money. I notice they waited until they were sure Abramoff made his plea deal, almost as if they did not want to give up the money until they were sure they needed to.
From a WaPo article, “"You just can't give the money back and forget about what the money was for," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/04/A
R2006010402111.html
I think the point here is if you accept a bribe and then accomplished what ever the bribe was for then a crime has been committed. Giving back the money is meaningless.
January 5, 2006 10:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
He couldn't mention the ugly truth: he was acquiesing to the decision of <hushed whisper> an international trade body's judicial arm, which had decided that the US tariffs were in violation of our obligations under international trade regulations.
Yup, Bush was too much the wimp to tell his base he was caving to the One World Government! Whatta coward!
January 5, 2006 10:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
These below the radar bribes are not always in the form of campaign contributions. Bush has been as much about directly benefiting his “supporters” as pushing legislation to benefit corporate interests over the public (which has been considerable itself). Look at all the fox-guarding-the-henhouse crony appointments in dozens of agencies. Look at the direct no-bid or rigged bids of overblown federal contracts. Look at the wealth the Bush family has amassed (going back to the first gulf war). Big business and big money are his ideology.
January 5, 2006 10:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
Matt, this isn't tacking 'left'. The 'right' isn't free market oriented, except when it helps them.
January 5, 2006 11:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
The 'right' isn't free market oriented, except when it helps them.
I disagree. A big part of "the right" is troglodyte conservative protectionists (think Pat Buchanan) who want to go back to some glorious 1950's vision of American manufacturing uber alles and they don't mind the strong blue collar unions that go along with that, just keep those immigrants out and those tariffs strong...and another big part of "the right" is survival-of-the-fittest free market trickle down voodoo economics...and the most amazing thing is that since Bush Sr. coined the voodoo appellation and broke the "read my lips" promise, that Rove has managed to keep both competing camps happily in the big tent.
There are all kinds of conservatives in this country and the GOP has managed to keep them all.
January 5, 2006 12:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's critical that this stop; we've got to pull the mask off these criminals and identify them for what they truly are.
January 5, 2006 12:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
1. I don't agree with Yglesias' implicit characterization of Left and Right here. He seems to think that tariffs are an inherently Leftist position, or at least a position that no true Rightist can take. That seems to me to fall for the Republican crap about Leftists and liberals just wanting big government. Historically I don't think that opinions about the size and power of government have unified the two major sides of the political debate. On some issues Leftists are reliably against the expansion of government power (such as the area of civil liberties), and in some periods Leftists have been very much against the expansion of federal power. Through American political history, and through modern political history generally, I think the only thing you can say about the Right and Left which can come close to capturing all those who marched under those banners, has to do with their attitudes towards economic elites. The Left tends to work against the interests of the economic elite, and the Right tend to be composed of the economic elites.
2. The argument offered against tariffs is terrible. First, cite the study that concludes with the $800,000 figure. If what you are saying is that to save one job the American public as a whole has to pay 800,000 extra dollars in prices, then you haven't proved at all that this is not in the interests of the majority. (that comes out to .3 cents per American) So for every extra cent that we all spend, we save three jobs. That sounds great to me.
January 5, 2006 2:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Trace the crony capitalists who helped bring Bush to power and I'll bet you will find that many of them have profited immensely in the past five years from Bush's policies.
January 5, 2006 2:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's really The K Street Government. The Republicans are better at the influence-peddling game these days, but that's mainly because they have more influence to peddle. Just look at the list of recipients of money from the Abramoff keiretsu. One-third of the money went to Dermocrats.
http://www.capitaleye.org/abramoff.asp
Democrats just <i><u><b>hate it</b></u></i> when you point that out. Hell, I got effectively tossed off of Daily Kos this week for telling the truth, which is that the Democratic Party is just as hooked on dirty money as the Republican Party is.
Mind you, I say this as a Democrat who has donated $14,000 to Kerry, the Democratic Party, a few 527s and some other candidates since mid-2004. The difference between me and those other donors is that neither I nor anyone I know is seeking influence or favors in return for the money. I donated it because I supported the candidates and the party.
It's time for the Democratic Party to unilaterally declare independence from lobbyists. The fact is that <b><i>every dollar contributed by or because of a lobbyist is bribe money</i></b>, regardless of what the law says. Who on earth is anyone kidding? Lobbyists give money out of the goodness of their heart and the conscience of their convictions?
You know, we political activists pride ourselves on knowing more than the general public and certainly than the lazy non-voters. But this is a case where they, especially the non-voters, know more than we do. They figured out the bribery game a long time ago, and have decided not to be pawns in it.
The Internet can change <i>ALL</i> of that. The Democratic Party can clean up its act. If that's combined with a return to the party's roots of sticking up for the <i><b>working American</b></i> who is being pushed to the economic margins, I think the Democratic Party can get back on track and be back on the offensive.
But to do it, the Democrats must quit the K Street Government. Yes, it will hurt for a while. But it will pay <i>huge</i> long-term dividends. It's not what the corruption-tolerant activists of Daily Kos and elsewhere want to hear, but I think it's the only way to go.
January 5, 2006 3:14 PM | Reply | Permalink