An Unaffordable Lesson

The other day I observed that I appeared to be in the minority on whether the infamous lobbyist Jack Abramoff copping a plea and becoming a federal stool pigeon would be a mortal threat to the Republicans' hold on Congree next November. I think it would be fair to say that David Brooks of the New York Times is somewhere in the middle, warning that the majority has to not so much rein in the sausage-buyers but make less sausage:

First, they need to hold new leadership elections….

Second, the Republicans need to get a grip on earmarks. Earmarks are the provisions that single members can stick into gigantic bills to steer spending toward favored projects. They're an invitation to corruption. If individual members of Congress can control $100 million federal contracts or billion-dollar pork barrel projects, then of course companies are going to find ways to funnel graft to those members. To prove they're serious about special-interest spending, Republicans could declare a one-year earmark moratorium until they get a handle on this problem. Or they could promote legislation mandating that earmarks eat up only 1% of any spending bill's total cost.

Third, Republicans need to steal David Obey and Barney Frank's lobbying-reform ideas. For some insane reason, having to do with their own special interests, Democrats have been slow to trumpet the ideas coming from their own party. Republicans have a chance to hijack them before the country notices. Specifically, there should be a ban on lobbyist-paid travel. (Members should be allowed to take spouses on publicly financed travel because it is important that members get out and see the world.) Former members should not be allowed to lobby on the House floor. All lobbyist contacts with government officials should be posted on the Internet…..

Fourth, enforce House rules. There's bound to be corruption when spending provisions can be slipped into legislation in the dead of night, outside the normal oversight procedures. There's bound to be corruption when members are forced to vote on sprawling bills nobody has a chance to inspect. Instead, all legislation should be posted online for 72 hours before the vote, so the staff and bloggers can nitpick and expose.

Fifth, rebuild the ethics committees….

Sixth, readopt the pay-as-you-go budget rules. As long as a $2.6 trillion a year government is expanding into more areas of national life, businesses will have an incentive to invest in lobbyists. The 1990 pay-as-you-go rules, which forced Congress to offset new expenditures with spending restraint, not only imposed fiscal discipline but also forced pork projects to compete for limited resources.

I disagree profoundly with #1 but both House 'Pubbies and the Hammer appear to have thrown in the towel on that one - so much for one of my predictions already, as well as GOP leadership stability, which will now become a faux "scandal"-driven revolving door now that the Dems have clinched DeLay's scalp.

#3 is symptom-covering at best, irrelevant futility at worst, aside from full public disclosure of lobbyist contacts. #4 couldn't hurt, but I wouldn't hold out much hope for any meaningful results. And the Democrats will never allow #5 because it would expose too much of their own shenanigans.

#2 and #6 are the only of Brooks' recommendations that matter because they address the root problem that has existed for seventy years: Big Government. If, as Gerald Ford used to say, "A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have," it's also going to attract hordes of private sector efforts to influence that process, including grabbing pieces of the action. And the people who do that for a living are called lobbyists. Whereas a government shrunk down to its originally intended dimensions will, if not put the Jack Abramoffs of the world out of business, at least give them a heckuva lot less to hustle.

RCP's John McIntyre sounds in general agreement with Brooks until he closes with this gaffe:

If [Republicans] slap a little PR band aid on this mess, then they are going to be rolling the dice going into November and maybe the voters should throw them out of power to teach them a little lesson.

Most of Brooks' ideas are precisely "little PR band-aids," whereas GOPers were already in trouble with their base for succumbing to the lures and charms of Big Government that they once condemned. I just don't think that any Abramoff fallout is going to matter in any of that, much less that voters are going to take their lives in their hands by teaching such petty "lessons" in the middle of a war for national survival.

And not when Democrats are drowning in Abramoff's corruption:

Nearly ninety percent of Senate Democrats took money linked to disgraced "Republican" lobbyist Jack Abramoff, according to a list compiled by the Republican National Committee.

Though reporters continue to insist that the Abramoff imbroglio is "a Republican scandal," 2008 Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton took more than $12,000 in tainted cash. Compared to the party's 2004 standard bearer, however, she's a piker. John Kerry raked in nearly $100,000 in Abramoff-linked donations.

In fact, 40 of the party's 45 U.S. senators made the Jack Abramoff dishonor roll....

....to the tune of over $729,000.

Rocks tend not to do much damage when they have to pass through so much glass first.