The Washington Post has an interesting piece this morning about solutions looking for problems at the tax-payer’s expense. For a country that more than any other in the west is the champion of free market solutions, a surprisingly large amount of money is funnelled into products that “the market” would not otherwise support by congressmen worried about local jobs and companies. Well worth a read.
The truth is that commercial interests are bound up with most political decisions. For example, the “ID Card Debate” in Britain is usually discussed in purely political terms, but if the providers of large databases, who will stand to benefit from the massive government contracts that will result, have not had some lobbying effort or other attempting to shape and guide the project and bolster support for it, then I would be amazed. It would have been, in commercial terms, an omission almost negligent.