Economist Steven Levitt and writer Stephen Dubner have made a lot of money with their “Freakonomics” franchise — books, website, even a movie — in which they share quirky stories explaining how people make their choices based on incentives.
They say if you want to understand human actions — whether people will act honestly, why doctors don’t wash their hands as thoroughly as they should, why people choose certain names for their children — look to which behaviors are rewarded and which are punished.
Let’s apply that theory to Congress. Call it “Freakolitics.”
We expect our congressional representatives to serve honorably, to always put country over party or self, and to vote their conscience at the same time they follow the will of the people.
Nice sentiments. I guess we should teach elementary schoolchildren that this is how the world works. But what are the political incentives and disincentives that actually exist in Washington? Here are four.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
First, in order to be re-elected, members of Congress must raise millions of dollars for the next campaign.
Remember the old bumper sticker, “He who dies with the most toys wins?” In politics, it’s, “He who raises the most campaign money usually wins.” That means members of Congress spend much of their time begging for money from big donors and special interests. The incentive for these donors and special interests to part with a little of their cash usually is to get a lot of somebody else’s cash — often the taxpayers’.
We’re told this is not bribery.
Second, in order to be re-elected, members of Congress have an incentive to sow conflict and a disincentive to cooperate with members of the other party to address the country’s problems. That’s because in order to get to the general election, they first must win their party’s nomination.
Party primaries are now dominated by activists — the rest of us can’t be bothered to vote on a pretty day in May — who often are very liberal on the Democratic side and very conservative on the Republican side. These good people, who are passionate about their causes, do not place a high value on cooperation. They want their congressman to fight the fight.
Elected officials live in fear of being “primaried” — being challenged before the general election by a more ideologically rigid member of their own party. Properly incentivized, they behave to make sure that doesn’t happen by voting along party lines and by spouting heated rhetoric that poisons the public discourse. The result is a Congress that is thick on the left and right, thin in the center, and dominated by crusaders instead of statesmen.
Third, in order to be re-elected, members of Congress have an incentive to increase the national debt and a disincentive to reduce it — those aforementioned special interests, the fact the people who will pay down the debt (children and the yet-to-be-born) don’t vote and the fact that most Americans haven’t come to grips with the hard choices the country must make. We elect and re-elect politicians who tell us we can have our cake and eat it too. We punish those who tell us it’s time to go on a diet.
Finally, being a member of Congress is a pretty good gig — $174,000 per year, with benefits that are, well, generous. But the real money is in lobbying your former fellow members of Congress once you are no longer in office. Both of Arkansas’ most recent senators, Tim Hutchinson and Blanche Lincoln, are now highly paid lobbyists, in fact.
As far as I know, Hutchinson and Lincoln are doing nothing wrong. The problem is that members of Congress have an incentive to govern in a manner that later will get them hired by their friends.
The takeaway from all of this? Americans can complain and grumble, call their congressmen and, every once in a while, vote one party in and the other party out, as happened in 2010. But until the incentives are changed, we’re just playing musical congressional seats.
Some ideas: optional public funding of campaigns; budget mechanisms that automatically cut spending when Congress won’t; term limits; and prohibiting members of Congress from working as lobbyists, at least for a period of time after they hold office.
The Founding Fathers didn’t create a democracy because rule by the people was such a neat idea. They did it because the incentives that previously had existed had been all wrong. The elite simply couldn’t help but act self-interestedly.
That democracy now needs some major tweaking because a bunch of bad incentives have developed — for elected officials and voters — and since human nature won’t change, the incentives must.
That’s “Freakolitics.” Now, where’s my movie deal?
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Steve Brawner is an independent journalist in Arkansas. His blog — Independent Arkansas — is linked at Arkansasnews.com. His e-mail address is brawnersteve@mac.com.