[EL] Campaign finance reform and life expectancy

[Doug Hess]

"I'll look forward to the evidence that campaign finance reforms prevent
famines or improve life expectancy..."

Ok, I'll bite:

I don't know if such evidence could exist since we are not likely to get
expansive campaign finance reform at the national level, and money has a
way of sneaking around reforms.

Still, I think you will find that a great many middle-of-the-road
economists and other observers believe that US trade policy on sugar and
some other crops wreak havoc with the economies of poorer nations. Some say
ag trade policies are right up there with the HIV epidemic and other public
health issues in importance to poor nations. So, there's a policy affecting
life expectancy.

And observers of policy making who think that the ability of the ag lobby
to keep these policies in place doesn't come (in part) from how it throws
money around DC are simply not paying attention. The ag lobby makes the
other lobby sectors look like children. They play hardball and for keeps.

I'm not very familiar with recent campaign finance literature, but often in
the social sciences methods and definitions used in studies determine what
phenomena we see to the point of missing the real action. After all,
interest groups are playing a complex game (with campaign finance as one
part of it) and they will make many wrong steps. There's no guarantee you
can win with donations, but that doesn't mean you don't need to play the
game (if you don't play, you don't win).

But it seems to me that there are many people around DC who can tell us
first-hand how their contributions influenced policies, and another set of
people who can tell us first-hand how the policy making process was
influenced by contributions. Unless these participants all suffer from an
inflated sense of self importance, are under some group delusion, or
express thoughts that are just epiphenomena divorced from their behavior, I
don't see how one discounts their analysis and experience entirely. In
other words, the number of people and the tales they tell are large enough
that it is hard to believe there is nothing to it, or that it is just sour
grapes of the losing side. Of course, an interesting question is: are the
lobbyists playing both sides of the game as a con? But even that would
imply that they force people to play by trying to punish those that don't
play (e.g., "Your opponents will hire us to coach them how to spread their
money around, even if your side doesn't!"). Just as members of congress
will sometimes, when asked to move on something, switch the conversation to
fundraisers that are coming up.

-D
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