“To Get Along, Go Along”: Political Corruption in America, Part 1

“To Get Along, Go Along”:
Political Corruption in America
(Part 1)

Many Americans think that today’s politics is corrupt. In their view, politicians often make decisions for selfish, cowardly, parochial, or partisan reasons, or because they have been bought by some special interest. They do not believe that public officials govern in the public interest. But this doesn’t mean Americans always agree about what corruption is or what to do about it. This essay discusses different kinds of political corruption and possible remedies. In this part, I explain why corruption occurs. The next part considers possible solutions.

Various kinds of “hard” or direct political corruption traditionally have been treated as crimes. For example, if a public official agrees to award a contract to someone, in return for receiving money, this is bribery. If we want to control hard corruption, we usually need tougher law enforcement, not new laws. But what should we do about “soft” or indirect corruption, which is often legal?

For example, suppose a company or organization pays $100,000 or more to a former government official who is a potential presidential candidate for a single speech. Isn’t this sort of payment often really intended to gain access or influence? What about the acceptance of campaign contributions from organizations interested in legislation pending before a committee on which the Congresswoman who receives the contribution sits? This looks a lot like vote-buying to many people. What about acceptance of a Washington job that pays hundreds of thousands of dollars a year by a retired member of Congress, who is paid largely for political contacts and knowledge? This kind of “revolving door” is common, and many people believe it corrupts public officials.

Soft corruption is not a partisan issue–it’s used to influence members of Congress from both major parties. Companies and even nonprofit organizations that pay for soft corruption are usually nonpartisan in passing out its benefits. They are trying to advance their interests by influencing politics. For businesses, politics usually involves either “rent seeking” to gain legally-sanctioned competitive advantages or efforts to escape taxation or regulation. Soft corruption aids their efforts, so it is a good investment. It is widespread, but our system effectively ignores much of it. What has happened as a result?

Soft corruption has become an important part of doing business in the Washington, DC area, which has expanded rapidly as the public demanded greater government services over most of the past century. In 1940, the Washington DC area had about 800,000 people. In 2010, it had 4.7 million people–an increase of nearly 500 percent. By comparison, the U.S. population grew by 133 percent during the same period. Washington’s expansion occurred in both Democratic and Republican administrations, and under Democratic- and Republican-controlled Congresses. All in all, it is fair to describe Washington’s phenomenal growth as a largely bipartisan effort. As the government has grown, soft corruption has grown with it.

But the Washington area hasn’t just expanded–many of its residents, including retired politicians, have become wealthy in the process. As of 2012, six of the eleven U.S. counties with the highest median household income were in the DC metro area. This included three of the top five: Virginia’s Loudon, Fairfax, and Arlington counties—where median household income exceeded $100,000 per year.[note 1] This is twice the national median household income. A 2013 article noted that “the region’s wealth really is at the expense of the rest of the country, since it’s fueled by tax revenue and deficit spending.”[note 2] Washington’s wealth is principally a result of government spending for goods and services. But the scale of its wealth suggests that many of these goods and services are being provided in ways that create a large “wealth dividend” for Washington area residents. Soft corruption aids private efforts to obtain a share of that wealth and to avoid government-imposed costs such as taxes by influencing public policy.

Washington has therefore become a place many politicians never want to leave, because life there is very good to them. Members of Congress have high salaries, large personal and committee staffs, and health and pension benefits far better than most American workers. Their pay of more than $170,000 per year puts them in roughly the top 5 percent of Americans in income.[note 3] Even better, they are unlikely to be defeated once they are elected–they have what are effectively lifetime appointments. “Since World War II, on average 93.3 percent of all incumbent representatives and 81.5 percent of all incumbent senators running for reelection have been returned for office.” [note 4] And because they can benefit from various forms of soft corruption, they do not need to leave, even in the unlikely event that they are defeated for re-election. Today, the average net worth of members of Congress is about $7.5 million–nearly 100 times the American average. Washington can afford to support them permanently in the style to which they have become accustomed while in office because their bipartisan efforts help to make sure the government economy continues to flourish. How did that happen?

We’ve created a permanently wealthy capital by asking our representatives to do a safe, narrowly-defined job that involves little real political responsibility in return for a high salary and a chance to benefit from soft corruption. Here’s what I mean. Imagine a politician from a state somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. It is said to be politically very “blue.” But it has many military bases, and one of its biggest employers is a major defense contractor. Will any Congressman or Senator, no matter how liberal on other issues, vote against military appropriations while they represent this state? Not if they want to remain in office. If enough Congressmen and Congresswomen have similar constituencies, even if they are as “red” or “blue” as they get, the Pentagon (and indirectly the DC area) will do well in peace or war. Or imagine another western state where cows vastly outnumber people. If a Congressman from there is asked to support limits on cattle grazing that damages public lands which are used at low cost by many ranchers, is that likely to happen? Suppose a Congresswoman represents a district where the major industry is textile production. Will this Congresswoman be likely to support unionization of the factories or free trade in textiles, if voters in the district or factory owners are convinced that either of those things will cost them jobs or profits?

The key lesson here is that each member of Congress must support the core economic and political interests of his or her district constituents, or lose their job. But what is really important for understanding soft corruption is that that is all they have to do to stay in office. Since political scientists estimate that the market value of a single seat in Congress is about $4 million (2014 dollars), going against their constituents on core issues is usually way too much to ask of its members.[note 5] As a result, most members of Congress can hardly be expected to support the national interest on any occasion when it conflicts with the primary interests of their constituents. But the flip side of this arrangement is that as long as they support those interests and make sure constituents get their Social Security checks on time, they are exceptionally unlikely to lose their very lucrative jobs and post-Congressional employment prospects. As the very high postwar Congressional re-election rates show, this is just what our “leaders” have been doing.

This narrow congressional “job description”–where they are really just “district advocates”–is also exactly what makes it possible for them to accept soft corruption covering a broad range of issues that their constituents don’t care about really deeply. They know that their constituents are highly unlikely to be motivated enough and organized enough to punish them for accepting soft corruption when it doesn’t directly affect the constituency’s core interests. And to accept it without facing partisan retribution, they must permit others to accept it as well. To get along, politicians go along, following former long-time U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Sam Rayburn’s advice. Soft corruption is the political path of least resistance.

Notes

1. Median income data from American Community Survey, US Census Bureau, updating data in New Republic article by Nate Cohn, “Washington Is Not the Wealthiest Area in America,” New Republic, March 8, 2013. Cohn’s article acknowledged that median income was commonly used as a measure of wealth, but argued that: “….[M]edian income doesn’t tell the whole story….Despite Washington’s high median incomes, its per capita income is comparable to other large, affluent, coastal regions. Among large metropolitan areas, San Francisco-Oakland leads the country with a per capita income of $61,395, followed by San Jose ($61,028), Washington ($59,345), Boston ($57,893), and New York ($56,770). The author continued: “But one could argue, if so inclined, that the region is still too rich. Why should a metro area largely supported by federal tax dollars possess wealth comparable to more productive cities like New York and San Francisco? It’s a fair question.” Indeed.
2. Nate Cohn, “Washington Is Not the Wealthiest Area in America”, New Republic, March 8, 2013.
3. Craig K. Elwell, “The Distribution of Household Income and the Middle Class,” Congressional Research
Service Report (RS20811), March 10, 2014, 2.
4. Roger H. Davidson, Walter J. Oleszek, Frances E. Lee, Eric Schickler, Congress and its Members, 14th ed. (CQ Press, 2013), 60.
5. Tim Groseclose and Jeff Milyo, “Buying the Bums Out: What’s the Dollar Value of a Seat in Congress?”
Research Paper No. 1601, Stanford Graduate School of Business, 1999. The authors conclude that because seats are quite valuable, it is much cheaper for interest groups to influence Congressmen and women by making large campaign contributions than it is to try to buy them out. Ibid., 2-3.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.