# Public Economy

## Special Interest Politics

Many political issues are of intense interest to a relatively small group, as we noted above. For example, many U.S. drivers do not much care where their car tires were made—they just want good quality as inexpensively as possible. In September 2009, President Obama and Congress enacted a tariff (taxes added on imported goods) on tires imported from China that would increase the price by 35 percent in its first year, 30 percent in its second year, and 25 percent in its third year. Interestingly, the U.S. companies that make tires did not favor this step, because most of them also import tires from China and other countries. (See Globalization and Protectionism for more on tariffs.) However, the United Steelworkers union, which had seen jobs in the tire industry fall by 5,000 over the previous five years, lobbied fiercely for the tariff. With this tariff, the cost of all tires increased significantly. (See the closing Bring It Home feature at the end of this chapter for more information on the tire tariff.)
Special interest groups are groups that are small in number relative to the nation, but quite well organized and focused on a specific issue. A special interest group can pressure legislators to enact public policies that do not benefit society as a whole. Imagine an environmental rule to reduce air pollution that will cost 10 large companies $8 million each, for a total cost of $80 million. The social benefits from enacting this rule provide an average benefit of $10 for every person in the United States, for a total of about $3 trillion. Even though the benefits are far higher than the costs for society as a whole, the 10 companies are likely to lobby much more fiercely to avoid $8 million in costs than the average person is to argue for $10 worth of benefits.
As this example suggests, we can relate the problem of special interests in politics to an issue we raised in Environmental Protection and Negative Externalities about economic policy with respect to negative externalities and pollution—the problem called regulatory capture (which we defined in Monopoly and Antitrust Policy). In legislative bodies and agencies that write laws and regulations about how much corporations will pay in taxes, or rules for safety in the workplace, or instructions on how to satisfy environmental regulations, you can be sure the specific industry affected has lobbyists who study every word and every comma. They talk with the legislators who are writing the legislation and suggest alternative wording. They contribute to the campaigns of legislators on the key committees—and may even offer those legislators high-paying jobs after they have left office. As a result, it often turns out that those regulated can exercise considerable influence over the regulators.
In the early 2000s, about 40 million people in the United States were eligible for Medicare, a government program that provides health insurance for those 65 and older. On some issues, the elderly are a powerful interest group. They donate money and time to political campaigns, and in the 2020 presidential election, 76% of those ages 65–74 voted, while just 51% of those aged 18 to 24 cast a ballot, according to the U.S. Census.
In 2003, Congress passed and President George Bush signed into law a substantial expansion of Medicare that helped the elderly to pay for prescription drugs. The prescription drug benefit cost the federal government about $40 billion in 2006, and the Medicare system projected that the annual cost would rise to $121 billion by 2016. The political pressure to pass a prescription drug benefit for Medicare was apparently quite high, while the political pressure to assist the 40 million with no health insurance at all was considerably lower. One reason might be that the American Association for Retired People AARP, a well-funded and well-organized lobbying group represents senior citizens, while there is no umbrella organization to lobby for those without health insurance.
In the battle over passage of the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA), which became known as “Obamacare,” there was heavy lobbying on all sides by insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies. However, labor unions and community groups financed a lobby group, Health Care for America Now (HCAN), to offset corporate lobbying. HCAN, spending $60 million dollars, was successful in helping pass legislation which added new regulations on insurance companies and a mandate that all individuals will obtain health insurance by 2014. The following Work It Out feature further explains voter incentives and lobbyist influence.
Special interests may develop a close relationship with one political party, so their ability to influence legislation rises and falls as that party moves in or out of power. A special interest may even hurt a political party if it appears to a number of voters that the relationship is too cozy. In a close election, a small group that has been under-represented in the past may find that it can tip the election one way or another—so that group will suddenly receive considerable attention. Democratic institutions produce an ebb and flow of political parties and interests and thus offer both opportunities for special interests and ways of counterbalancing those interests over time.

### Identifiable Winners, Anonymous Losers

A number of economic policies produce gains whose beneficiaries are easily identifiable, but costs that are partly or entirely shared by a large number who remain anonymous. A democratic political system probably has a bias toward those who are identifiable.
For example, policies that impose price controls—like rent control—may look as if they benefit renters and impose costs only on landlords. However, when landlords then decide to reduce the number of rental units available in the area, a number of people who would have liked to rent an apartment end up living somewhere else because no units were available. These would-be renters have experienced a cost of rent control, but it is hard to identify who they are.
Similarly, policies that block imports will benefit the firms that would have competed with those imports—and workers at those firms—who are likely to be quite visible. Consumers who would have preferred to purchase the imported products, and who thus bear some costs of the protectionist policy, are much less visible.
Specific tax breaks and spending programs also have identifiable winners and impose costs on others who are hard to identify. Special interests are more likely to arise from a group that is easily identifiable, rather than from a group where some of those who suffer may not even recognize they are bearing costs.

### Pork Barrels and Logrolling

Politicians have an incentive to ensure that they spend government money in their home state or district, where it will benefit their constituents in a direct and obvious way. Thus, when legislators are negotiating over whether to support a piece of legislation, they commonly ask each other to include pork-barrel spending, legislation that benefits mainly a single political district. Pork-barrel spending is another case in which concentrated benefits and widely dispersed costs challenge democracy: the benefits of pork-barrel spending are obvious and direct to local voters, while the costs are spread over the entire country. Read the following Clear It Up feature for more information on pork-barrel spending.
The amount that government spends on individual pork-barrel projects is small, but many small projects can add up to a substantial total. A nonprofit watchdog organization, called Citizens against Government Waste, produces an annual report, the Pig Book that attempts to quantify the amount of pork-barrel spending, focusing on items that only one member of Congress requested, that were passed into law without any public hearings, or that serve only a local purpose. Whether any specific item qualifies as pork can be controversial. The 2021 Congressional Pig Book identified 285 earmarks in FY 2021, with a cost of $16.8 billion. Recent growth in earmarks and their cost is apparent: in FY 2017, there were 163 earmarks at a cost of $6.8 billion. Hence, in only four years, there was a 75% increase in the number of earmarks and a 147% increase in the cost of those earmarks.
Logrolling, an action in which all members of a group of legislators agree to vote for a package of otherwise unrelated laws that they individually favor, can encourage pork barrel spending. For example, if one member of the U.S. Congress suggests building a new bridge or hospital in their own congressional district, the other members might oppose it. However, if 51% of the legislators come together, they can pass a bill that includes a bridge or hospital for every one of their districts.
As a reflection of this interest of legislators in their own districts, the U.S. government has typically spread out its spending on military bases and weapons programs to congressional districts all across the country. In part, the government does this to help create a situation that encourages members of Congress to vote in support of defense spending.

### Key Concepts and Summary

Special interest politics arises when a relatively small group, called a special interest group, each of whose members has a large interest in a political outcome, devotes considerable time and energy to lobbying for the group’s preferred choice. Meanwhile, the large majority, each of whose members has only a small interest in this issue, pays no attention.
We define pork--barrel spending as legislation whose benefits are concentrated on a single district while the costs are spread widely over the country. Logrolling refers to a situation in which two or more legislators agree to vote for each other’s legislation, which can then encourage pork-barrel spending in many districts.

### Self-Check Questions


### Review Questions


### Critical Thinking Questions


### Problems


### References

Roper Center Public Opinion Archives. “A Brief History of Public Opinion on the Government’s Role in Providing Health Care.” Last modified September 23, 2013.
U.S. Department of Commerce: United States Census Bureau. “Voting and Registration: Historical Time Series Tables; Table A-10: Reported Registration Rates in Presidential Election Years, by Selected Characteristics: November 1968 to 2012.” http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/socdemo/voting/publications/historical/index.html