Kulongoski, Jobs, and Gordon Smith

An Associated Press story ran this weekend that revealed my decision to not vote for Gordon Smith. Yesterday, Jeff Mapes ran a followup on his blog.

My problem with Gordon Smith is not really that he is triangulating in an election year. I expect that, and would tolerate a lot of it. I'm not really that much of a purist when it comes to electoral politics. I'm just fine with voting for people who I agree with 60% of the time.

But Gordon Smith has gone south on the most important issue of the day: regulating and taxing carbon emissions. That is when he lost me and my vote.

I'm not on a crusade here. I'm not out to try to convince others to not vote for him. I didn't make any announcement about my vote. In fact, I am pretty sure Gordon Smith is going to win, and his victory will partly be due to the fact that he has so aggressively assumed the color of his environment.

Ted Kulongoski is in the news today touting the job creating potential of "green energy." This is economic development Soviet style. Does it create jobs to give huge subsidies to alternative energy projects that don't make economic sense on their own? Sure. Just not as many jobs as the subsidies themselves destroy.

But the jobs that get killed are opportunity costs. They are diffuse. The jobs that get created are wonderful ribbon-cutting-press-release material, which makes them perfect for politicians who misunderstand economics and want to pretend they are doing something.

It's the same basic argument about tarriffs. Do import tarriffs save jobs in the U.S? Sure. Just not as many jobs as they destroy. Slapping a 100% taffiff on steel imports absolutely does protect jobs in the domestic steel industry. Those can be identified.

The higher relative cost of the steel that ends up in products produced here is spread throughout the economy, and ends up in the form of incrementally higher prices for finished products we all pay for.

It is a cardinal principle of politics that any political process will become dominated and co-opted by the concentrated interests at the expense of the diffuse interests. The case of "green energy" subsidies and import tarriffs are prime examples.

Craven politicians like Ted Kulongoski ally themselves with special interests, and help them enrich themselves at public expense. The interest groups have substantial monetary incentives to play the game - campaign contributions, public relations efforts, etc. The costs are diffused throughout the economy. Those who bear these costs, individually, do not have enough incentive to mobilize any political effort to oppose the policies that cost them, because the incremental cost each person bears is small.

And so we get what economists call "rent-seekers," who use the political process to pass mandates that enrich themselves. Kulongoski's green energy policies and Gordon Smith's "Cap & Trade" programs are nothing more than interest group subsidies.

They kill jobs. But who cares when they give politicians such wonderful opportunities for press conferences!