Ending 'Big SIS' (The Special Interest State) and Renewing the American Republic - Softcover

Some quotations from the book:

+  [T]he experience of the twentieth century . . . shows that removing all checks on government power does not result in wise rule by disinterested mandarins. It produces . . .  "an unstructured, undisciplined, exploitive interest group free-for-all". (p.189)

+  Big SIS [is a ratchet that allows] motion in one direction only - toward greater government activism -- and then locks. . . (p.112)

+  Reading contemporary [judicial] opinions on government power is like making an archaeological dig into the intellectual ruins of the political thinking of the 1930s, if not the 1910s. (p.186)

+  [T]he great tides of history are moral and spiritual, and these can sweep away many structures once thought solid. As the Tea Party movement shows, our classic ability for justified moral outrage is asserting itself again. (p.192)

+  The leverage exerted by Big SIS affects decisions far beyond the money that it commandeers directly. It distorts the incentive structures throughout society, and sends investors and workers skittering off in unproductive directions. (p.91)   

+  The genius of a republic is its blend of limited government and autonomous private institutions that most emphatically do not mimic the government's response to special-interest pressures. (p.175)

+  In surveying the landscape of government, you find everywhere this pattern of broad, vague laws implemented by detailed regulations that impose murky costs on the private sector, with little attention to rational assessments of costs, benefits, or effectiveness. (p.119)

+  Special-interest greed takes many forms. While everyone is familiar with the concept of capture of agencies by those with an economic interest, ideology equals money as a motivator. (p.121)

+  The representatives earn their money by being unreasonable, and justify themselves by a professional ethic that binds them to demand things for their clients that no decent person would demand for herself. (p.121)

+  Pretty much wherever government has asserted the old Progressive/New Deal/Great Society need for total control of some segment of the society or economy, the ground has been sown with salt. (p.164)

+  We are at a point of constitutional crisis, and this is all to the good. Only in such times does the public pay enough attention to assert its true long-term interest. (p.192)

James V. DeLong has lived in Washington, DC, for four decades. He has been a lawyer, middle-manager, analyst, and research director for federal agencies; an executive and analyst at free market think tanks; a foundation executive; and a free-lance lawyer/consultant. His substantive experience encompasses energy and the environment; administrative law and procedure; property rights; consumer protection and competition policy; intellectual property; and high tech/telecom. He has written two books and numerous articles and papers. A full bibliography is at the website supporting this book, www.specialintereststate.org. Mr. DeLong is a cum laude graduate of Harvard College, where he majored in American History, and a magna cum laude graduate of the Harvard Law School, where he was Book Review Editor of the Harvard Law Review.