I’m confused by this Wall Street Journal editorial that accuses President Obama of being a gangster. The author is opposed to a proposed executive order that would allegedly require any corporation that is bidding on government business to disclose their political donations over the past two years. Let’s think about this. Suppose that Kellogg’s is bidding to provide the armed forces with breakfast cereal. They disclose that they’ve given quite a bit of money to the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Department of Defense, Daniel Inouye of Hawaii. Meanwhile, their competitor, Post, reveals that they haven’t made any political contributions at all.
How does this public information influence Sen. Inouye’s decison on who to award the contract? (I’m aware that a decision like this is probably made by some minor official in the Pentagon, but this is just a thought experiment).
Before the executive order, Sen. Inouye would have a theoretical motivation to award his anonymous donors. But now that everyone can see that Kellogg’s gave him money, he has to worry that it will look like pay-to-play bribery if he awards them the contract. In other words, disclosure makes it less likely that Democrats will award contracts only to corporations that give them money. But this editorial argues that opposite. For that to be true, the politicians would have to be ignorant of who gives them money up until the same moment that the public finds out.
That makes no sense to me. It’s such bad reasoning that I am little surprised that anyone would put their name to it. Oh, who am I kidding? There is no shame anymore.