July 16, 2009, 8:45 am
Normally, if I were to contemplate resorting to bribery to change someone’s decision, I would have to face two hurdles. First, of course, I would face legal consequences because in many contexts., bribery is illegal. Second, I would have to consider the cost — is the price being demanded worth it. After all, it makes little sense to spend a million dollars to bribe someone to make a decision worth a hundred thousand dollars to me.
But, unfortunately, neither of these problems exist when Congressional leadership seeks to bribe recalcitrant lawmakers to vote their way. Bribery in this context is not illegal, its just “horsetrading.” And the cost is meaningless, because folks like Nancy Pelosi do not bear the cost of the bribe, taxpayers do.
It is totally clear to me that Obama and Pelosi will spend any amount of money to pass their key legislative initiatives. In the case of Waxman-Markey, the marginal price per vote turned out to be about $3.5 billion. But they didn’t even blink at paying this. That is why I fear that some horrible form of health care “reform” may actually pass. If it does, the marginal cost per vote may be higher, but I don’t think our leaders care.
July 10, 2009, 8:33 am
I predicted the climate bill would likely pass the House as Obama and Co. would happily pull out the checkbook to spend taxpayer money to bribe Representatives to pass his legislative agenda. I wrote:
I am again hearing rumblings that the climate bill may pass the House. If so, it will be interesting to see what last minute bribes were added to make this happen. The most recent bribe we know about is the commitment to pay farmers not to grow crops with the weak window dressing that this is somehow a carbon offset.
The Washington Times reports on one such payoff:
When House Democratic leaders were rounding up votes Friday for the massive climate-change bill, they paid special attention to their colleagues from Ohio who remained stubbornly undecided.
They finally secured the vote of one Ohioan, veteran Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Toledo, the old-fashioned way. They gave her what she wanted – a new federal power authority, similar to Washington state’s Bonneville Power Administration, stocked with up to $3.5 billion in taxpayer money available for lending to renewable energy and economic development projects in Ohio and other Midwestern states.
This is part of that mysterious 310-page ammendment that was revealed just hours before the vote.
