by Skip Kaltenheuser

About the author: Skip Kaltenheuser is a writer and lawyer in Washington, D.C.

Money in politics, passed by gloves both iron and velvet, surrounds a Congress that, as Barry Goldwater puts it, is “paralyzed with the fear of alienating” interest groups. Paralysis benefits the status quo and rockets the deficit. This should be our top domestic issue.

It isn’t, of course, because campaign finance is Washington’s hottest growth industry. Congressional races in 1992 cost $678 million, a 52 percent increase over 1990. Everyone is related to or friends with someone who milks the cash- based lobbying machine, or aspires to do so. It permeates the society scene, and even the Fourth Estate [the national media], with its own conglomerates’ political action committees (PACs) and media seers who pick...