Jay Cost - A Republic No More: Big Government and the Rise of American Political Corruption

In explaining corruption as a permanent, institutionalized feature of our government, Jay Cost has made a major contribution to American history and political science. His narrative is detailed and lively, accessible to citizens and scholars alike. And he makes a case for reform while suggesting its limits. A real tour de force.

WILLIAM KRISTOL, editor of The Weekly Standard

In a democracy, politics is an openly, indeed exuberantly transactional business: If you elect me, I will do this and that for you. Hence the perennial problem of navigating the vast gray area between licit and illicit promises and promise-keeping. Jay Cost provides a map to the moral geography of modern government. The moral of this dismaying story is that as government becomes bigger, so does the number of transactions that look a lot like corruption.

GEORGE F. WILL

Jay Cost makes a strong case that corruption is a systemic and dangerous feature of modern government. His argument, based extensively on the thinking of James Madison, cuts across ideological boundaries. His book is accessible to liberals and conservatives who share an interest in governance for the public good.

THOMAS B. EDSALL, online political columnist for The New York Times

Corruption, argues political scientist Jay Cost, is a permanent, institutionalized feature of our government. The Constitution, he argues, creates a limited government that is incapable of exercising the wide economic powers officeholders have embraced since the 1790s without rewarding well-placed insiders and auctioning off favors. Its an original thesisand a disturbing one.

MICHAEL BARONE, co-author of The Almanac of American Politics

Jay Cost... seems to have read everything about federal corruption from the early republic to the corporate-friendly Mickey Mouse Protection Act of 1998. With A Republic No More he provides a definitive account of Jacksonian grift, Gilded Age graft and 20th-century government giveaways.

DEIRDRE N. MC CLOSKEY, The Wall Street Journal

Mr. Cost exhaustively documents the way the American political system, in a repudiation of Madisons vision for democracy, has fallen prey to a culture of self-interest that distributes resources in ways that run contrary to the public interest.

DAVID WILEZOL, The Washington Times

What Jay Cost describes so well about the erosion of the common good is the underlying explanation of why 75% of Americans say that corruption is widespread in government.

NEWT GINGRICH

2015, 2016 by Jay Cost

Preface 2016 by Jay Cost

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Encounter Books, 900 Broadway, Suite 601, New York, New York, 10003.

First American edition published in 2015 by Encounter Books, an activity of Encounter for Culture and Education, Inc., a nonprofit, tax exempt corporation.

Encounter Books website address: www.encounterbooks.com

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.481992 (R 1997) (Permanence of Paper).

First paperback edition published in 2016.

THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGUED

THE HARDCOVER EDITION AS FOLLOWS:

Cost, Jay.

A republic no more: big government and the rise of American political corruption by Jay Cost.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-59403-868-6 (ebook) 1. Political corruptionUnited States. 2. RepublicanismUnited States. I. Title.

JK2249.C69 2015

364.1'3230973dc23

2014032671

This book is dedicated to the memory of Daniel R. McKenzie

The stock-jobbers will become the pretorian band of the Government, at once its tool & its tyrant; bribed by its largesses, & overawing it by clamours & combinations.

JAMES MADISON, LETTER TO THOMAS JEFFERSON, AUGUST 8, 1791

I decided to get far enough along to be able to control legislation that meant something to men with real money and let them foot the bills. Never commit yourself but always be in a position where you can if you choose. The men with money will look you up then and you dont have to worry about campaign expenses.

SENATOR BOIES PENROSE (REPUBLICAN, PENNSYLVANIA)

We manage our political risk with the same intensity that we manage our credit and interest rate risks.

FRANKLIN REINES, FORMER CEO OF FANNIE MAE, IN A 1999 MEETING WITH INVESTORS

Table of Contents

Contents

DOES BIG GOVERNMENT DIRECTLY CREATE CORRUPTION?

A major assumption that conservatives and libertarians make about political corruption is that it correlates directly with the size of government. Despite the subtitle of this bookBig Government and the Rise of American Political CorruptionI dispute this idea in the pages that follow. My argument has drawn some criticism from advocates of limited government, whose aims I sympathize with. In this new preface, I would like to clarify my views.

For starters, it is a misconception to think that political corruption did not exist, or that it existed only on a negligible scale, in a government of modest authority. As early as the 1780s, when America was governed by the measly Articles of Confederation, political corruption was evident on the national level. Consider, for instance, the disposition of the western territories. About half the states could lay some claim to territory in the west, while the other half could not. This was not simply a parochial dispute, as the four-sided states were claiming land titles of dubious validity sold to them by Native Americans, much to the chagrin of the three-sided states. The final settlement on the western lands was ultimately up to the Confederation Congress, many of whose members were speculating in land or were associates of land speculators, and therefore looking to validate those titles.