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Nice primer in Public Choice Economics. I wish we could have heard the Cato response...
The suggested possible solution of public financing of campaigns-which implies taking private contributions off the table-may just have been nixed by the Supreme Court in Citizens United (holding independent corporate campaign expenditures on behalf of candidates is protected by the First Amendment).
We have public financing of presidential campaigns now, but any successful canditate (i.e. one likely to be elected) will be able to raise more money outside of this system and will reject the public funding option, as Obama demonstrated this last election. Even if we had public financing of senate and house races, the outcome will be determined by the extra private contributions made by corporations and wealthy individuals.
Counterintuitively, the solution may lie in more money, not less: more contributions from mobilized voters contributing small amounts in very large numbers. The Obama campaign and the Brown campaign may be examples of this. If a candidate can garner sufficient broad based support through $10 Twitter contributions, this may be enough to get him elected without support from corporate lobbyists.
How much is a corporation willing to pay to preserve a particular law, or have a particular law passed? It will have a limit, and this limit may translate into less lobbying money than a more fully mobilized electorate can muster.
How does this fit into the Health Care Debate? Are Republican's unified in their opposition because of rent seeking from insurance interests? It's hard to explain both the efforts to get legislation passed, and opposition to it in those same terms.
I may well agree with Roland here:
There are proposals from the right for a $50 "political contribution" voucher that would be taken off of your tax return, and could be directed to appropriate organizations. The thought is very much like Roland's - enough of those can wash out corporate/ union/ trust kiddie money pretty quickly.
K Street would adapt, of course. Political/ NGO fundraising is already something of a breathless racket, with targeted campaigns left and right that urge the semi-gullible to contribute to the latest "armageddon assault of America." One consequence of "long tail" contribution models would be a considerable sharpening of those efforts across a broader swathe of the electorate, which would likely contribute somewhat to political polarization.
I think it would still be worth it, on the balance of the trade-off.
I think Lessig misses the target when he portraits the politicians as a victim of the political economy. The quote he uses from Senator John Stennis defines who holds the reigns of power.
"I hold life and death over those companies. I don't think it would be proper to take money from them."
In my opinion, what the politicians do to raise money is more like extortion. It is a carrot and stick routine that rewards those who play and punishes those that don't. An interesting example of this dynamic is UPS vs. FEDEX
I think the problem is the increasing concentration of power in Washington that needs the attention.