In praise of irrational politicians

James Buchanan won the Nobel prize for discovering that politicians are like everyone else--they respond to incentives. He found that he could explain a lot of their voting bahavior using the rational actor paradigm (rational, self interested, optimal behavior).

After his party took control of Congress, I would have expected my own Congressman, Jim Cooper, to start handing out favors to constituents in exchange for campaign contributions. Instead, he is acting...irrationally. And I am delighted. He is making it harder for his colleagues to spend our money on their pet projects.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: The Club for Growth has put up a Congressional Pork Scorecard tracking members' votes on all 50 anti-pork amendments that have been presented.

Highlights:

* Sixteen congressmen scored a perfect 100%, voting for all 50 anti-pork amendments. They are all Republicans.

* The average Republican score was 43%. The average Democratic score was 2%.

* The average score for appropriators was 4%. The average score for non-appropriators was 25%.

* Kudos to Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN) who scored an admirable 98%-the only Democrat to score above 20%.

* Rep. David Obey (D-WI) did not vote for his own amendment to strike all earmarks in the Labor-HHS appropriations bill. Rep. Obey scored an embarrassing 0% overall.

* 105 congressmen scored an embarrassing 0%, voting against every single amendment. The Pork Hall of Shame includes 81 Democrats and 24 Republicans.

* The Democratic Freshmen scored an abysmal average score of 2%. Their Republican counterparts scored an average score of 78%.

A far bigger problem with the politicians' incentives is that old people vote in greater proportions than young people. This creates incentives for politicians to delay addressing our entitlement problem, likely the most pressing issue of our children's generation. Fortunately, however, our irrational Jim Cooper has been the driving force behind the adoption of accrual accounting by the US government, so we can see how badly we are screwing our kids. Each working family would have to come up with about $400,000 in today's dollars to pay off the Medicare and Social Security promises our politicians have made to old people. Before this bill comes due, teach your kids to speak Danish so they can move to a country that has addressed its entitlement problem.

Only 25% of voters approve of the job that Congress is doing--I say lets hunt down the 25% and exile them as they are obviously part of the problem.