Cato Institute
by David Boaz

01/18/06

When you spread food out on a picnic table, you can expect ants. When you put $3 trillion on the table, you can expect special interests, lobbyists and pork-barrel politicians. That's the real lesson of the Abramoff scandal. Jack Abramoff may have been the sleaziest of the Washington lobbyists but he's not unique. As the federal government accumulates more money and more power, it draws more lobbyists like honey draws flies. People invest money to make money. In a free economy they invest in building homes and factories, inventing new products, finding oil, and other economic activities. That kind of investment benefits us all -- it's a positive-sum game, as economists say. People get rich by producing what other people want. But you can also invest in Washington...

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=5382


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp