It's morning in Wisconsin

[Neil]

How do you take away politicians' ability to spend?  Who gets that ability if not them?  I'm just curious how that applies in reality.

I would imagine that Hans will tell you that the solution would be to return to an interpretation of the US constitution that prevents the federal government from doing anything, and probably to eliminate a lot of taxation too.  In essence, to dismantle the modern state.

[Valmy]

This is why the left always fails, their ideals have no bearing on reality.

So the real and cogent and lucid thing to do here is eliminate the state all together?  Interesting solution there Hanarchist.

Granted that would definitely put an end to state corruption.

I continue to be puzzled by the sort of mentality that openly admits there is corruption but says it is holy, sancrosanct free speech corruption that is untouchable by legal means.

[Sheilbh]

I would imagine that Hans will tell you that the solution would be to return to an interpretation of the US constitution that prevents the federal government from doing anything, and probably to eliminate a lot of taxation too.  In essence, to dismantle the modern state.

Either that or technocrats and quangos get to run everything.

[Berkut]

People always assume that corporations give money in order to bribe politicians, when it is probably just as likely that they are being extorted by the politicians in the first place.  Microsoft wa famous for not giving any money until they were attacked by the DOJ after Microsoft's enemies gave a lot of money to influence DC.  Microsoft learned real quick that you have to pay to play, or you come under the wheels.

There is some truth to that but then ask yourself who were the "enemies" tormenting Microsoft: to a great extent they were corporate competitors (Sun, Oracle, Netscape, IBM etc).  In that respect the Microsoft case was just a later iteration in a lognstanding pattern - recall that in Michael Porter's original book on competitive strategy as published around 1980, he noted the use of antitrust law as a tool for attacking and constraining competitors.

What this story has in common with chasing earmarks, featherbedding government contracts, and writing special breaks into the tax code is that they are all varieties of rent seeking behavior.  Corporations are the major players here - not because corporation are uniquely wicked, but because the larger corporations tend to have high levels of resources to dedicate to rent seeking and a coherent centralized management structure that helps them pursue such goals effectively.

Which is why the only way to address this is by taking away the politicians ability to hand out candy through limited government. 

Yeah, that won't actually work in the real world. Saying we should fix the problem by returning to a time that simply does not exist anymore, and never will, is like saying we should control government spending by cutting out all that waste.

It is in every practical sense, tantamount to saying we should just give up.

I am all for keeping government smaller, but I realize that "smaller" is at best a very relative term. No matter what happens, the basic scope of government in the USA is not going to change fundamentally enough to remove the need to somehow deal with campaign finance.

And frankly, even back when the US government was a fraction of its current size, there was still plenty of corruption.

[DGuller]

Some would say much more of it.

[Hansmeister]

How do you take away politicians' ability to spend?  Who gets that ability if not them?  I'm just curious how that applies in reality.

It takes 5 Supreme Court Judges to overturn the reinterpretation of the commerce clause done at the behest of FDR in the 30s.  That would wipe out much of the misconduct that has been made possible since then.

[Sheilbh]

It takes 5 Supreme Court Judges to overturn the reinterpretation of the commerce clause done at the behest of FDR in the 30s.  That would wipe out much of the misconduct that has been made possible since then.

I'm English.  I don't like judges deciding policy one way or the other. 

But also that doesn't remove spending power from politicians which is what you identified as the source of corruption.  It limits the scope of legitimate spending, but I think that would expand again - probably through a constitutional amendment.  But it doesn't answer my question of how you remove spending power from politicians?  As far as I see it's either anarchy or a system without any accountability.

[PDH]

It takes 5 Supreme Court Judges to overturn the reinterpretation of the commerce clause done at the behest of FDR in the 30s.  That would wipe out much of the misconduct that has been made possible since then.

Assrape

[Neil]

How do you take away politicians' ability to spend?  Who gets that ability if not them?  I'm just curious how that applies in reality.

It takes 5 Supreme Court Judges to overturn the reinterpretation of the commerce clause done at the behest of FDR in the 30s.  That would wipe out much of the misconduct that has been made possible since then.

They could never decide that though.  They're appointed by politicians along ideological lines, and there is no political support whatsoever for reinterpreting the commerce clause.

[The Brain]

The fact that America has tried to perfect the union for more than 200 years and are still stuck with the retardo version speaks volumes about its inhabitants.

[Valmy]

They could never decide that though.  They're appointed by politicians along ideological lines, and there is no political support whatsoever for reinterpreting the commerce clause.

Well maybe if the libertarian Tea Party types are triumphant for a few decades.

[The Minsky Moment]

How do you take away politicians' ability to spend?  Who gets that ability if not them?  I'm just curious how that applies in reality.

It takes 5 Supreme Court Judges to overturn the reinterpretation of the commerce clause done at the behest of FDR in the 30s. 

You've got Thomas
The other 2 dissenters in Gonzales v. Raich are gone.
Will be interesting to see how their replacements (Roberts and Alito) deal with this issue in the health care case.