Kudos to the Center for Public Integrity, American Public Media and the Medill News Service for spending the past nine months poring over thousands of congressional disclosure forms for at least 23,000 trips taken by members of Congress between January 2000 and June 2005. All of the trips — valued at more than $50 million total — were paid for by private entities, including corporations, nonprofit advocacy groups and trade associations. The pay-off for those financing the trips is quality — i.e. private — time to “educate” a member or key staff or committee aide.
There is a great deal of huffing and puffing about these trips among the usual talking heads in the mainstream media and other precincts of elite opinion, and much of it deserves serious consideration. The analysis found at least 90 trips valued at about $145,000 that were sponsored or co-sponsored by registered lobbyist firms, even though it’s illegal for lobbyists to pay for congressional travel. Fully 2,300 of the trips cost at least $5,000, another 500 cost at least $10,000 and 16 cost more than $25,000.
All of the trips were absolutely necessary, at least according to the people signing the original disclosure forms. Must have been tough duty, because there were $500-a-night hotels, $25,000 corporate jet flights and other extravagant perks no doubt designed to soothe backs aching and heads throbbing from the pressure of watching over the public’s business.
But let’s not miss two fundamentally important points about these trips. First, the investigators found numerous examples of a tactic familiar to congressional veterans: Take a three-day trip to give one speech in a desired location. Find a friendly lobbyist or advocacy group to pay for your trip, then deliver the speech. Spend the balance of the three days seeing the sights. This is a con job, to be sure, but it is a bipartisan part and parcel of the corrupt culture that gives rise to the Incumbistan Complex detailed here yesterday.
Second, the list of corporations, nonprofits and trade associations putting out the $50 million to pay for the 23,000 trips reads like a who’s who of recipients of multiple billions in federal contracts, grants, earmarks and other disbursements. The federal budget consumes a fifth or more of the nation’s annual economic activity, with the bulk of that spending directly influenced by members of Congress and indirectly by their top aides. So why is anybody surprised that the beneficiaries of federal largesse spend millions of dollars skating right up to and sometimes past the letter of the law in order to influence the decision-makers who hold the purse strings?
The solution is not more regulations and rules that require teams of lawyers to understand and which crafty lobbyists, congressional aides and other Washington insiders eventually find new ways to evade. The solution is to reduce the size and scope of government. Only then will there be significantly fewer special interests buying plane and hotel tickets for members of Congress and their staffs.
