Why Government Fails So Often: And How It Can Do Better (74 page)

40
. Ibid.; see also Reed Abelson, “Medicare Is Faulted on Shift to Electronic Records,”
New York Times
, November 29, 2012.

41
. Leora Horwitz, “A Shortcut to Wasted Time,”
New York Times
, November 23, 2012.

42
. For cautious optimism, see David Dranove, Chris Forman, Avi Goldfarb, & Shane Greenstein,
The Trillion Dollar Conundrum: Complementarities and Health Information Technology
, National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 18281 (2012).

43
.
W. Kip Viscusi, “The Lulling Effect: The Impact of Child-Resistant Packaging on Aspirin and Analgesic Ingestions,”
American Economic Review
74 (1984): 324–27.

44
. See Kate Taylor, “Mayor Offers Ideas of Why Homeless Figures Are Up,”
New York Times
, August 23, 2012.

45
. Sam Peltzman, “The Effects of Automobile Safety Regulation,”
Journal of Political Economy
83 (1975): 677–726.

46
. Robert W. Crandall & John D. Graham, “The Effect of Fuel Economy Standards on Automobile Safety,”
Journal of Law & Economics
32 (1989): 97–118.

47
. Michael Heberling, “Government-Mandated Fuel-Efficiency Standards,”
The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty
56 (2006): 36–38.

48
. See, e.g., Nicholas D. Kristof, “I Have a Nightmare,”
New York Times
, March 12, 2005.

49
. Ian Urbina, “As OSHA Emphasizes Safety, Long-Term Health Risks Fester,”
New York Times
, March 30, 2013.

50
. Casey B. Mulligan,
The Redistribution Recession: How Labor Market Distortions Contracted the Economy
(2012), 113–17.

51
.
http://www.aei.org/article/economics/dodd-franks-costs-will-be-paid-for-by-low-income-bank-customers/?utm_source=today&utm_medium=paramount&utm_campaign=092613
.

52
. Aaron Wildavsky,
Searching for Safety
(1988), 61–75.

53
. Robert L. Rabin, “Reexamining the Pathways to Reduction in Tobacco-Related Disease,”
Theoretical Inquiries in Law
15 (2014): n16.

54
. Clemens Bomsdorf, “Denmark Scraps ‘Fat Tax’ after a Year,”
Wall Street Journal
, November 12, 2012.

55
. Eric Lipton, “Banks Rally against Strict Controls of Foreign Bets,”
New York Times
, May 1, 2013.

56
. Mary Williams Walsh, “Experts Fear Life Insurers Are Courting Reserve Risk,”
New York Times
, November 30, 2012.

57
. “Over-Regulated America,”
Economist
, February 18, 2012, 9.

58
. Jason Zweig, “When Laws Twist Markets,”
Wall Street Journal
, August 4, 2012.

59
. Torstenn Persson, Gérard Roland, & Guido Tabellini, “Comparative Politics and Public Finance,”
Journal of Political Economics
108 (2000): 1121–61.

60
. See James Q. Wilson, ed.,
The Politics of Regulation
(1980). For a very recent review of the subject, see the Tobin Project,
http://www.tobinproject.org/
.

61
. On OSHA, see, e.g., David Weil, “Enforcing OSHA: The Role of Labor Unions,”
Industrial Relations
30 (2008): 20–36. On the EPA, see, e.g., R. Shep Melnick,
Regulation and the Courts: The Case of the Clean Air Act
(1983). On the EEOC, see, e.g., Sean Farhang,
The Litigation State: Public Regulation and Private Lawsuits in the U.S.
(2010).

62
. See, e.g., Peter Skerry,
Counting on the Census: Race, Group Identity, and the Evasion of Politics
(2000).

63
. Marie Hojnacki & David C. Kimball, “Organized Interests and the Decision of Whom to Lobby in Congress,”
American Political Science Review
92 (1998): 776.

64
. Mariano-Florentino Cuellar, “Coalitions, Autonomy, and Regulatory Bargains in Public Health Law,”
Theorotical Inquiries in Law
15 (forthcoming, 2014).

65
. Joseph E. Stiglitz,
The Price of Inequality
(2012).

66
. See, e.g., Jacob S. Hacker & Paul Pierson,
Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer—and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class
(2010); Lawrence Lessig,
Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress—and a Plan to Stop It
(2011); Timothy Noah,
The Great Divergence: America’s Growing Inequality Crisis and What We Can Do About It
(2012).

67
. Ezra Klein points out that cash is less important than gifts, favors, and relationships. See Klein, “Our Corrupt Politics: It’s Not All Money,”
New York Review of Books
, March 22, 2012, 42, 44 (reviewing Lawrence Lessig,
Republic, Lost
, and Jack Abramoff,
Capitol
Punishment: The Hard Truth about Washington Corruption from America’s Most Notorious Lobbyist
[2012]).

68
. Richard Hall & Alan Deardorff, “Lobbying as Legislative Subsidy,”
American Political Science Review
100 (2006): 69. See also Derek Bok,
The Problem with Government
(2001), 82–87.

69
. See, generally, Eduardo Porter, “Unleashing Corporate Contributions,”
New York Times
, August 29, 2012 (reviewing evidence).

70
. The classic statement came in a prestigious American Political Science Association committee report. Austin Ranney, ed., “Toward a More Responsible Two-Party System,”
American Political Science Review
44, supplement (1950): 488–99.

71
. John J. Pitney Jr., “Review of
Do Not Ask What Good We Do
and
It’s Even Worse Than It Looks
,”
The Forum
10 (2012), 4.

72
. Ben Protess, “On Wall Street, Suddenly Making Nice with Obama after Backing Romney,”
New York Time
s, November 8, 2012.

73
.
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
, 558 U.S. 50 (2010).

74
. See Michael W. McConnell, “A Defense of
Citizens United
” (unpublished manuscript, 2012).

75
. “Carter: Unlimited Contributions ‘Legal Bribery,’ ”
New York Times
, July 18, 2013.

76
. Matt Bai, “How Did Political Money Get This Loud?”
New York Times Magazine
, July 22, 2012, 14, 16, 18.

77
. Stephen Ansolabehere, John M. de Figueiredo, & James M. Snyder Jr., “Why Is There So Little Money in U.S. Politics?”
Journal of Economic Perspectives
17 (2003): 105–30.

78
. Porter, “Unleashing Corporate Contributions.”

79
. Klein, “Our Corrupt Politics,” 44. See also the exchange on the politics of single-payer health care financing: Lawrence Lessig & Ezra Klein, “ ‘It’s Not All Money,’ ”
New York Review of Books
, May 10, 2012, 66.

80
. Porter, “Unleashing Corporate Contributions” (on the Steven Levitt study).

81
. See, e.g., Eduardo Porter, “Get What You Pay For? Not Always,”
New York Times
, November 7, 2012; Brody Mullins, “Outside Groups Spent Big, but the Impact Isn’t Clear-Cut,”
Wall Street Journal
, November 7, 2012; Nicholas Confessore & Jess Bidgood, “Little to Show for Cash Flood by Big Donors,”
New York Times
, November 8, 2012.

82
. Frank O. Bowman III, “Are We Really Getting Tough on White Collar Crime?”
Federal Sentencing Reporter
15 (2003): 237–241.

83
. Russell G. Ryan, “Mum’s the Word about SEC Defeats,”
Wall Street Journal
, June 3, 2013.

84
. Gary S. Becker, “Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach,”
Journal of Political Economy
76 (1968): 169–217.

85
. Floyd Norris, “Fraud Case Delayed by Two Months,”
New York Times
, November 2, 2012 (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission may bring charges against the first “emerging growth” company under JOBS Act).

86
. Jessica Silver-Greenberg & Ben Protess, “JP Morgan Faces Full-Court Press by U.S. Regulators,”
New York Times
, March 27, 2013.

87
. Anne Kates Smith, “Does the SEC Have Your Back?” May 2012,
http://www.kiplinger.com/article/investing/T038-C000-S002-does-the-sec-have-your-back.html
.

88
. See, e.g., Rachel E. Barkow, “Prosecutorial Administration: Prosecutor Bias and the Department of Justice,”
University of Virginia Law Review
99 (2013): 271–342; and William J. Stuntz, “The Pathological Politics of Criminal Law,”
Michigan Law Review
100 (2001): 505–600.

89
. See, generally, Donald L. Horowitz,
The Jurocracy: Government Lawyers, Agency Programs, and Judicial Decisions
(1977).

90
. See Clifford Winston,
Government Failure versus Market Failure
(2006), 38n9.

91
.
Oversight of the U.S. Department of Justice: Hearing before the Senate Commission on
the Judiciary
, 113th Cong. (2013) (statement of Eric. H. Holder Jr., attorney general of the United States).

92
.
Canning v. NLRB
, 705 F.3d 490 (D.C. Cir. 2013). The Supreme Court will review the decision (Docket 12–1281).

93
. See, e.g., James B. Stewart, “Another Fumble by the S.E.C. on Fraud,”
New York Times
, November 17, 2012; Nathaniel Popper & Jessica Silver-Greenberg, “Mixed Verdict on Fraud at a Money Market Mutual Fund,”
New York Times
, November 13, 2012 (“difficulty … in holding financiers accountable for precipitating the financial crisis”).

94
. See Arthur Levitt with Paula Dwyer,
Take on the Street: What Wall Street and Corporate America Don’t Want You to Know
(2002), 132–33.

95
. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission,
In Brief: FY 2011 Congressional Justification
, February 2010,
http://www.sec.gov/about/secfy11congbudgjust.pdf
.

96
. Stephen J. Choi, Karen K. Nelson, & A. C. Pritchard, “The Screening Effect of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act,”
Journal of Empirical Legal Studies
6 (2009): 35–68.

97
. Eric Lipton & Ben Protess, “Banks’ Lobbyists Help in Drafting Financial Bills,”
New York Times
, May 24, 2013.

98
. See, e.g., Justin O’Brien,
Redesigning Financial Regulation: The Politics of Enforcement
(2007); Archie Parnell, “Political Interference in Agency Enforcement: The IRS Experience,”
Yale Law Journal
89 (1980): 1360–94.

99
. Peter Eavis, “In Tighter Loan Rules, Wiggle Room for Banks,”
New York Times
, January 10, 2012.

100
. Jessica Silver-Greenberg, “Bank Deal Ends Flawed Review of Foreclosures,”
New York
Times
, January 11, 2013.

101
. David S. Hilzenrath, “Judge Questions SEC Settlement with Citigroup,”
Washington
Post
, October 27, 2011.

102
. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Office of Investigations,
Investigation of
Failure of the SEC to Uncover Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi Scheme
, August 31, 2009,
http://www.sec.gov/news/studies/2009/oig-509.pdf
.

103
. Ben Protess & Jessica Silver-Greenberg, “Blame Abounds over a Flawed Foreclosure Review,”
New York Times
, April 4, 2013.

104
. See, e.g., Walt Bogdanich, “2nd Official Dissented over Pequot Inquiry,”
New York
Times
, December 5, 2006; and National Resources Defense Counsel, “EPA Inspector General Finds Agency Undercut Ongoing Enforcement Suits against Polluting Power Plants,” October 1, 2004,
http://www.nrdc.org/media/pressreleases/041001.asp
.

105
. Internal Revenue Service, “IRS Releases New Tax Gap Estimates: Compliance Rates Remain Statistically Unchanged from Previous Study,” IR-2012–4,
http://www.irs.gov/uac/IRS-Releases-New-Tax-Gap-Estimates;-Compliance-Rates-Remain-Statistically-Unchanged-From-Previous-Study
.

106
. This is the title of Eric Redman’s authoritative book on the subject; see Redman,
The
Dance of Legislation
, 2nd ed. (2001).

107
. Michael Cooper, “Gun Sales Surge as Nation Weighs Tougher Limits,”
New York Times
, January 12, 2013.