Bribing people with their own money (Pt. 3)

Posted by Marc Hodak on March 27, 2010 under Invisible trade-offs | Be the First to Comment

Bart Stupak gained recognition–and notoriety–for holding the health care reform bill hostage over his anti-abortion demands.  The 11th hour pledge by President Obama in the form of a promised executive order to meet those demands sealed Stupak’s support, and passage of the landmark bill.  Stupak’s stance has infuriated folks on both sides of the abortion debate.

The pro-life faction considers an executive order to be a lame bulwark against a law that otherwise allows federal subsidies for abortion, and feels betrayed:

Michigan for Life took away the endorsement he has enjoyed for 18 years.

The staunch liberals, who generally favor abortion-rights, also feel jacked around:

“The fact that he was willing to threaten health-care reform for this narrow, pro-life issue just burned me up, and it had meant he had lied to us.”

Well, this post is not about health care or abortion.  It’s about how Stupak will win re-election despite all of the animus directed against him from both sides, including the high-profile defections of powerful supporters.

The fact that Stupak reflects the pro-life, pro-gun, pro-labor sensibilities of his constituents is a reasonable enough basis for his rosy re-election prospects.  But there are a lot of worthy people in his district with those policy positions.  Stupak’s political invincibility rests on federal bacon he has brought home.

[Stupak] has brought home millions of dollars in federal projects to the district, said David Haynes, a professor of politics at Northern Michigan University… “Bart has delivered things like road projects and people will remember that.”

This reflects a remarkably low hurdle for his political strength.  His district has shipped between $10 and $15 billion in taxes to Washington over his last term.  Getting a few extra million back for some road projects is like a tip.

The fact is, most taxpayers view taxes that come out of their paychecks as a fixed cost, like a mortgage or a car payment.  But they seem to view discretionary government spending in their district as a kind of gift, even though it’s their own money that feeds the pot from which that spending originates.  Of course, the skill of their particular congressman in “bringing home the bacon” can make millions of dollars of difference one way or the other, and they credit their congressman accordingly.  But they wouldn’t give him or her the same credit for reducing their taxes by one percent, which could easily leave them with the resources to build their own roads and have plenty of money left over.  Liberals would complain, “but those people wouldn’t spend their tax savings like that,” as if that were a valid defense for routing those millions via Washington, D.C.

The fact is that the politicians sustain a system of everyone paying for everyone else’s roads via the byzantine machinery of Congress as a way of getting credit for something their people could accomplish with far less waste and friction if they were simply left with the resources (and the expectation) to do it themselves.

The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money.

– Unsourced attribution to Alexander Fraser Tytler (often misattributed to Alexis de Tocqueville)