Let me join JPod in praising Jonah’s post. I agree with most of it. But let me offer a few dissents or modifications (since not all these points really contradict what Jonah is saying).
1) Something is clearly going on in the current environment. The number of registered lobbyists has doubled in Washington since 2000 to roughly 35,000, according to Jeffrey Birnbaum. They’re not all beating back big government, but some are affirmatively getting things from government. Here’s how Birnbaum put it, “In the 1990s, lobbying was largely reactive. Corporations had to fend off proposals that would have restricted them or cost them money. But with pro-business officials running the executive and legislative branches, companies are also hiring well-placed lobbyists to go on the offensive and find ways to profit from the many tax breaks, loosened regulations and other government goodies that increasingly are available.”
2) Earmarks are definitely part of the problem, although obviously not all of it or even most of it. Knight-Ridder reported in December that the number of firms registered to lobby appropriators almost doubled from 2000 to 2004, from 1,865 to 3,523. These firms aren’t trying to limit government, but get it to spend on their favorite projects.
3) The blanket statement that companies don’t want to lobby isn’t true. Some don’t, some do. Read this Washington Post story today. An earmark can mean tens of millions of dollars for your company, if you get the right lobbyist to “persuade” the right lawmaker. Neither are many universities or localities in Washington to defensively protect themselves from big government. They want a piece of the action.
4) This is kind of an argument from authority, so feel free to disregard to it, but GOP lobbyists I have talked the last couple of weeks think earmarks are uniquely abusable. They are something very concrete to sell to clients, and they are pretty easy to get, especially if you are donating to the right congressman and have the right relationship.
All that said, Jonah’s basic point is correct. Which is why we have to be realistic here. Government will not be cut down to a size anytime soon–ever?–where companies will feel no need to lobby. But that doesn’t mean we have to accept the status quo either. In 1991 the highway bill had 538 earmarks. Last year’s had more than 6,000. There’s nothing inevitable about that growth, and it has helped create a “favor factory,” as Abramoff put it, in Washington.
Political machines typically go through cycles. They inevitably get too fat and happy, and that often–if a given machine is to survive–prompts a period of renewal. Congress is badly in need of the renewal phase right now.
Finally, if the current political environment holds, I think there is real potential for some Republican presidential candidate to wed a limited government message to a populist call to clean up Washington in 2008.