Dream on

[Campaign finance reformers] think that with enough restrictions and regulations, with enough benevolent overseers and fair-minded enforcers, they can stifle the corrupting influences in Washington.

This is naïve. Corruption and power go hand in hand; or, as Lord Acton famously warned, power corrupts — and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The increasing amounts of money spent on Washington are a direct reflection of the increasing amounts of power we've given Washington to auction off.

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There really is no area of our lives too mundane or trivial for action from Washington. When the addition, subtraction or alteration of a single word in a federal regulation can shift millions of dollars around the economy, or when a law like the Prescription Drug Benefit can sway billions, is it any wonder so many people are willing to spend so much money to get a government to their liking?

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That money is all flowing to the D.C. area by virtue of the enormous and growing influence of the federal government. It's parasitic wealth, not created wealth.

It's defense and homeland security contracts, a glut of high-paid federal workers and high-paid lobbyists sent to Washington to secure a slice of the pie for their clients.

Campaign finance reform, then, is the clichéd band-aid on the sucking chest wound. With so much at stake, money will always find its way to the people who wield the power — if not over the table, then under it.

Campaign finance reform also carries with it the curious characteristic of "solving" government corruption by giving the government more power to silence the people who are critical of it.

Spending limits also tend to favor incumbents, who have natural advantages over their challengers (which is why despite that the public generally loathes Congress, congressmen get re-elected at a clip of 90 to 95 percent).

You could make a good case that laws like McCain-Feingold actually encourage corruption in that they make it harder to unseat incumbents. Serving term after term after term with little danger of losing re-election tends to make politicians rather powerful and unaccountable. And more power coupled with less accountability makes them more corruptible.

The solution to the corruption in Washington, then, isn't more restrictions on political speech. It's to shrink the federal government. The government can't sell power and influence it doesn't have.

Take power out of the Beltway and the money interest groups spend to bid on it will go away, too.