January
10, 2006
For the House GOP, A Belated Evolution
By George
Will
WASHINGTON -- Before
evolution produced creatures of our perfection, there was a 3-ton
dinosaur, the stegosaurus, so neurologically sluggish that when
its tail was injured, significant time elapsed before news of
the trauma meandered up its long spine to its walnut-size brain.
This primitive beast, not the dignified elephant, should be the
symbol of House Republicans.
Yes, one should not
taint all of them because of the behavior of most of them. Why,
perhaps half a dozen of the 231 Republican representatives authored
none of the transportation bill's 6,371 earmarks -- pork projects.
And now among House Republicans there are Darwinian stirrings,
prompted by concerns about survival.
In Washington, such
concerns often are confused with and substitute for moral epiphanies.
Tom DeLay will not return as leader of House Republicans, whose
new fastidiousness is not yet so severe that they are impatient
with Ohio Rep. Bob Ney's continuing chairmanship of the Committee
on House Administration, in spite of services he rendered to Jack
Abramoff. Ney has explained, by way of extenuation -- yes, extenuation
-- that he did not know what he was doing.
Anyway,
catalyzed by DeLay's decision to recede, House Republicans, perhaps
emboldened by the examples of Afghanistan and Iraq, are going
to risk elections. When they elect their leaders, they
should consider the following:
The national pastime
is no longer baseball, it is rent-seeking -- bending public power
for private advantage. There are two reasons why rent-seeking
has become so lurid, but those reasons for today's dystopian politics
are reasons why most suggested cures seem utopian.
The first reason
is big government -- the regulatory state. This year Washington
will disperse $2.6 trillion, which is a small portion of Washington's
economic consequences, considering the costs and benefits distributed
by incessant fiddling with the tax code, and by government's regulatory
fidgets.
Second, House Republicans,
after 40 years in the minority, have, since 1994, wallowed in
the pleasures of power. They have practiced DeLayism, or ``K Street
conservatism.'' This involves exuberantly serving rent-seekers,
who hire K Street lobbyists as helpers. For House Republicans
the aim of the game is to build political support. But Republicans
shed their conservatism in the process of securing their seats
in the service, they say, of conservatism.
Liberals
practice ``K Street liberalism'' with an easy conscience because
they believe government should do as much as possible for as many
interests as possible. But ``K Street conservatism'' compounds
unseemliness with hypocrisy. Until the Bush administration, with
its incontinent spending, unleashed an especially conscienceless
Republican control of both political branches, conservatives pretended
to believe in limited government. The last five years, during
which the number of registered lobbyists more than doubled,
have proved that, for some Republicans, conservative virtue was
merely the absence of opportunity for vice.
The way to reduce
rent-seeking is to reduce the government's role in the allocation
of wealth and opportunity. People serious about reducing the role
of money in politics should be serious about reducing the role
of politics in distributing money. But those most eager to do
the former -- liberals, generally -- are the least eager to do
the latter.
A surgical reform
would be congressional term limits, which would end careerism,
thereby changing the incentives for entering politics and for
becoming, when in office, an enabler of rent-seekers in exchange
for their help in retaining office forever. The movement for limits
-- a Madisonian reform to alter the dynamic of interestedness
that inevitably animates politics -- was surging until four months
after Republicans took control of the House. In May 1995 the Supreme
Court ruled, 5-4, that congressional terms could not be limited
by states' statutes. Hence a constitutional amendment is necessary.
Hence Congress must initiate limits on itself. That will never
happen.
Although bribery
already is a crime and lobbying is constitutionally protected
(the First Amendment right ``to petition the government for a
redress of grievances'') a few institutional reforms milder than
term limits might be useful. But none will be more than marginally
important, absent the philosophical renewal of conservatism. To
which end, who should Republicans elect?
Roy Blunt of Missouri,
the man who was selected, not elected, to replace DeLay, is a
champion of earmarks as a form of constituent service. If, as
one member says, ``the problem is not just DeLay but 'DeLay, Inc.,'''
Blunt is not the solution. So far -- the field may expand -- the
choice for majority leader is between Blunt and John Boehner of
Ohio. A salient fact: In 15 years in the House, Boehner has never
put an earmark in an appropriations bill.
©
2005, Washington Post Writers Group
