Posted on 23 Sep 2010 at 12:38pm By GavinoPresident Obama is fond of justifying legislation by making vague accusations about the power and influence of “special interests”. In speech after speech on health care, finance reform and the economy, he lectures about the nefarious actions of special interests that are supposedly undermining society. Heroically, he then positions his administration as the knight who will slay the evil dragon. But what is the substance behind the president’s claim? 
To secure permanent access and influence on Capitol Hill, businesses in the U.S. donate money to candidates from both major political parties in broadly equal amounts. They have to because the U.S. political system ebbs and flows, with the power of patronage and purse strings transferring from one party to the other. Those who wish to see changes in federal regulations or appropriations must be pragmatic and work with whoever is in office. That often translates into making donations in an effort to gain preferential treatment. So whether it is merchant bankers, derivative dealers, telecommunications companies, airlines, oil companies or the whole gamut of business enterprise in America today, all will have a reason to lobby Washington, DC, either individually or collectively through trade groups.
But there are other special interests too: Trade unions, environmental groups, charities and an array of pressure and political action organizations. They advocate for their cause or philosophy and supply money, manpower and intellectual resources to politicians. One distinguishing factor, however, is that these groups often focus on one side of the political aisle – and most are liberal.
Intellectually, the concept of special interests has become a handy means for liberals to discredit Republicans. After all, Republicans are generally viewed by voters to be the party of business and they tend not to rail against special interests themselves. When Democrats and political journalists make pejorative references to special interests, the implication is that Republicans are part of the conspiracy.
The notion of powerful special interests also provides liberals with a convenient intellectual justification for the expansion of government power. According to their narrative, only the federal government is powerful enough to contain the wicked special interests, which it must do through complex regulations governed by a slew of oversight agencies. Without these evil special interests, some other political justifications would have to be deployed to expand government.
So, while special interests undoubtedly exist, the focus on them in political discourse is largely a rhetorical ruse and their political affiliation is widely mischaracterized. Liberal groups don’t even view themselves as special interests, with Democrats referring to environmental and social special interest groups as “civil society” to disguise them as broad-based groups of citizens. It is as if liberals groups deserve an exemption from the term because of their supposedly virtuous and selfless causes and their ostensibly non-profit status. But they feed at the same trough.
The most damaging special interests in recent American history are Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government sponsored mortgage enterprises that even now are exempted from financial rules on capitalization that apply to all other lending institutions. They built a relationship with Democrat Committee chairmen that traded lax oversight for affordable housing and thus created the financial collapse of 2008. Congressmen received political donations from Fannie and Freddie, with one of the largest beneficiaries being then-Senator Barack Obama.
Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported that renewable energy companies, who rely for their existence on Democrat government mandates and taxpayer subsidies (such as those in the $787 billion failed economic stimulus), were hosting a $2,500.00 per head fundraiser in Washington, DC for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s Nevada reelection campaign.
By its very nature, liberalism creates the conditions necessary for the proliferation of special interests. A bigger government means a larger federal budget to be fought over, and this translates into more special interests lobbying for pieces of pork. Similarly, the more regulations that are administered, the more special interests will lobby for favorable treatment for their medical equipment, energy technology or financial trading system.
Despite this, Republicans are mute when it comes to challenging arguments about special interests. It may be because they see lobbying as a basic constitutional right. Or perhaps they don’t want to undermine the revenue sources they share with Democrats. Whatever the reason, their unwillingness to fight only serves to reinforce the notion that special interests are both universally bad and are tied exclusively to them.
Anybody who is serious about reducing the political power of special interests will be advocating greater transparency on Capitol Hill and smaller government. That sounds more like the tea party’s agenda than that of the supposed dragon slayer in the White House.
Agree fully with your assessment. It’s not exclusive to US politics and Capitol Hill. The same is here in NZ. It’s to do with the fact that Liberal lobby groups / special interest groups from the Left are sanctimonious and think only they have a right to get their messages across, but not others.
Fannie and Freddie are two pet special interest groups of the Dems – they may be the undoing of Maxine Waters and Dem pols. Another set of pet Dem special interest groups are the teachers unions. The teacher unions poured $100 million into the Washington DC democratic primary to derail the education reform minded mayor, Adrian Fenty. $100 million to stop a mayor and his hand picked school chancellor who tried to offer massive pay raises for increased accountability – I hate to think how much the union will plow into federal elections! Special Interest groups = public employee unions. Remember when people used to say ” Work for the Government, you won’t make a lot of money but at least you’ll have a secure job?” The new saying is “work for the government and get rich off of taxpayers beccause you’ll have a secure job!”
Gavino, good post. There’s a tyranny of self-righteousness that gets liberal special interest groups disproportionate political and media attention. It is as if they are empowered to speak for the people, even though they are unelected, self-selected and often not accountable to anybody except their own clique. Supposedly, according to Edelman, these groups are more trusted than the political elite, which is at least elected, and business. So PRs tell firms to align themselves with special pleaders to get the NGO glow of respectability and a share of their public trust. Groups like Greenpeace play the game by hijacking corporate reputations and then ransoming them back for a “fee”. To break free of this nonsense requires standing up to the media and to the special-pleaders they often favour. It involves PRs helping their clients to be more self-confident about their core activities and the benefits they bring to society. But right now too many PRs share the same political outlook as the liberal campaigners and media. So they advocate kowtowing at great cost to society. They advocate that firms display a lack of self-respect and much self-hate, which are not attractive virtues. This does little to inspire public confidence or to inspire a sense of pride in the firm. Hence, in every “crisis” PRs urge their clients to apologize, reform and move on regardless of the facts… The real problem is one of confidence and a reluctance to tell uncomfortable truths, and a reluctance to show the middle finger.
It’s amazing how the left gets away with using this special interests argument against the application of the free market. It is clearly a universal issue. Teachers unions seem to be a big problem in many countries for the same reason as explained by Joe B. I travel to Panama quite a bit and it is a huge political issue there too. The only way around this is to promote vouchers and charter schools so that kids can be the priority, not the teachers. Education is another classic example of government failure. Paul, great comment. There is definitely too much kowtowing and in the end it is self-destructive.
I find it very cool that individuals can make a difference when they really believe in something. I’m hoping congress and obama can take a lesson from gays in the military.. they did what politicians couldn’t do. They thought for themselves and made it happen. Politicians are in it for themselves… and aren’t willing to help anyone that might impact their popularity.
If gay military people can change laws and politicians who claim to care and are adament about making it happen can not… then wow, that really drives it home.
Just imagine if senior citizens got upset and did something about social security checks not adjusting for inflation!
If this government gets any worse, it’ll have its worse fear: People thinking and doing things that politicians can’t… And then realizing how useless our system is for ‘special interests’.. and what that even means.. how about just “interests”?
-C
I’m not sure what you are referring to, Carl. Gays do serve in the military. The question is whether this should be on the “Don’t ask, Don’t tell” basis passed by President Clinton or whether gays should be allowed to openly serve in the military. Whatever the merits and demerits of each set of arguments, the Senate vote last month was little more than a political manoeuver. Senate Majority leader Harry Reid doesn’t bring votes to the floor unless he knows he has the votes to get them passed. Otherwise he wastes legislative time. In this case, he knew he didn’t have the votes but went ahead anyway because the Democrats are facing a mid-term election trouncing. He and his party are despearate to shore up liberal votes and what better way than to say they tried to pass this liberal legislation but were stopped by evil Republicans. Never mind that the Dems hold (for the next few months at least) 59 of the 60 Senate votes needed to avoid a filibuster. And not to mention that for a year and half they held 60 of the 60 votes needed. So they worked with the liberal media to portray this as a landmark vote and when it predictably fell the media obliged in their partisan way. The headlines were “GOP blocks repeal…”, “Republicans Block Bill…” But in terms of your assertion that “gays in the military.. they did what politicians couldn’t do. They thought for themselves and made it happen. ” – well, that is certainly not what came to pass. The issue was used (and I do mean “used”) by Democrat politicians on this occasion to stir up some votes and gain some popularity in the run up to the elections. And behind the campaign to get the law changed is, well, a campaign, run by lobbyists and funded mostly by liberal fat cats.
Well dang. Let the politicians rule, then. My hope is dwindling. The machine is stronger than the man.