Parasites of DC

Gene Healy:

In the wake of Apple CEO Steve Jobs's death -- and in the midst of the ongoing "Occupy Wall Street" protests--came an ominous report from Bloomberg News last week:

"Beltway Earnings Make U.S. Capital Richer Than Silicon Valley." According to the latest Census figures, Washington, D.C. is now the wealthiest metropolitan area in the United States.

That's good news for local property values, but I can't say it fills me with hometown pride. After all, Silicon Valley's wealth was earned -- just rewards voluntarily given for producing innovations that have dramatically improved our lives.

In contrast, D.C.'s prosperity reflects a parasite economy that battens on wealth created by others. We live in a vast, metastasizing tick of a city, swollen on the lifeblood it drains from the body politic. This is one race the home team deserved to lose.

As former Slate reporter Jack Shafer once put it, "Washington doesn't make anything except scandals." But its "regulatory powers, its executive orders, its judicial decisions, its ability to conjure money out of thin air, and its budget-making authority," give D.C. the ability to dictate "who can do business and how."

This city's wealth is largely based on what public choice economists call "rent-seeking," using the political process to rig the game in one's favor -- through subsidies, tariffs, regulatory advantages, and other benefits unavailable via free and fair competition.

"The rent-seeking is too damn high!" economist Alex Tabarrok quipped upon reading the Bloomberg report. True enough: spending on lobbyists set another record last year, at $3.5 billion, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

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Is this a record Obama is proud of?  No wonder people are responding positive to Rick Perry's promise to make the city as inconsequential as possible.