Sensible Government

Everyone wants it. And if everyone agreed about what was sensible, we'd have a pretty good chance of getting it. It's a democracy, right?

The New York Times this week had a really good piece on the politics of earmarks. You can see it here. It turns out that quite a few sincere politicians were elected by less sincere electorates to do away with earmarks. This has the possibility of ending the federal funding of projects that are crucially necessary to the district, but that were not valued very highly by the Office of Management and Budget.

This brings to the forefront a crucial distinction that everyone really knows, but that not everyone remembers in the biennial orgy of anti-government rhetoric--some earmarks are reasonable and necessary and others are frivolous and without merit. Hello? Project Control to Earth? Hello? Is anyone listening? Most elected officials will reliably choose frivolous projects that benefit their friends and neighbors over sensible projects that benefit only other districts. Why? Well, because the "let's apply the aggregate benefit test" candidates were defeated by the "if the money comes here, it's a good project" candidates. And now those have been defeated by the "anywhere the money goes is the wrong place if it is earmarked" candidates.

We did this to ourselves.

Many, perhaps most, antiabortion activists grant that in some particular instances, an abortion is the best thing for everyone concerned. It's sensible. But if you pass a law that allows discretion--the choice of abortion when it is the best thing but not when it is not the best thing--you will get indiscretion as well. People will make use of the new statutory latitude to do things that should not be done. Yes. They will. It's hard to tell, but, these activists are forced to argue, if we can't have sensible discretion, it is better to have no discretion at all. To ban sensible choices as the price of preventing unsensible choices.

Like the earmarks.

So even if everyone wants sensible government and even if there is a sizable area of agreement among the people about what is sensible and what is not, we can't have sensible government, because we won't elect people who will pass sensible earmarks and sensible abortion laws.

It's a conundrum.