Some politicians benefit financially from policies — legislation, regulations, tax code — that they have promoted and supported. In some cases, this financial benefit is significant, even massive — $40,000 a year, or more than $700,000 in one big chunk.
I want to talk about that money. It matters. It is at least potentially corrosive. To ignore such financial benefit would be dangerous, opening the door to blatant corruption and policies that disregard the common good.
But this is not an easy subject to talk about.
Part of the difficulty is that this subject can seem beside the point. Any given piece of legislation is likely to entail a financial benefit for some but not for others. JMann summarized this point well in comments to the initial post: "Cutting the estate tax is a good idea or a bad idea whether or not it benefits Bush."
The point is pragmatic. Perhaps it is best, in order to evaluate any given policy on its merits, to bracket the question of any given politician's personal financial stake in the matter. The question of who benefits and how much is, in this view, a distraction and a bit of a sideshow. We should keep our policy debates disinterested, abstract and exclusively on the merits of the ideas in question.
The problem with such an approach is that we're talking about money. As in the clinking, clanking sound that makes the world go 'round. Money is never irrelevant.
Consider any abstract, disinterested discussion of tax legislation. Such discussions always include a consideration of what economists refer to as "incentives." What they mean by that is money — money and the way that money influences the actions and behavior of people who reliably alter said behavior in order to get it or to avoid losing it. It seems strange to consider the powerful influence of such incentives on everyone except the politicians making the decisions that create them.
And we're not just talking about money, we're also talking about politics. That makes the appeal for disinterested discussion impossible. "Disinterested" politics is an oxymoron. Politics is all about interests. The question cui bono?, therefore, is never a mere sideshow. It is the main event.
Any given piece of legislation is likely to benefit some, but not others. The business of politics is a matter of weighing these competing benefits and competing interests, attempting to balance them as best as possible for the common good and whatever rough approximation of justice is achievable.
The particular proposal that sparked this discussion is the attempt to abolish the estate tax. The effect of such a proposal will be a significant financial windfall for some. That money comes from somewhere. There will be, in other words, winners and losers. In this case, a very few winners and a great many losers. If debating this proposal disinterestedly on its merits requires us to ignore its effect on these winners and losers then such a disinterested debate is, itself, irrelevant. Worse than irrelevant, actually. It would be unjust.
President Bush and his heirs stand to profit at least $787,000 from the abolition of the estate tax. Vice President Cheney and his heirs stand to benefit to the tune of more than $12 million. Those are some pretty hefty "incentives." Too hefty for us to ignore or, more to the point, for us to naively accept that Bush and Cheney will ignore.
Such financial benefits may not be identical to the accepting of bribes or kickbacks, but the morally corrosive effect is the same. I suppose we could call them "bribe-related program activities."