Chip Taylor

Today's civics lesson

for any wanna-be city councilmembers or legislators.

If required, you can always get additional support for a wasteful boondoggle by making it even more expensive:

D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams has persuaded seven of the council's 13 members to line up in support of his baseball financing plan by slipping more than $70 million in enticements into the stadium legislation, including $40 million for commercial development in Southeast Washington, $2 million for a high school in Ward 5 and $10 million for unspecified projects in Wards 6 and 7.

The expenditures showed up in a 41-page draft that Williams's allies on the council planned to offer yesterday in place of the mayor's original bill. Several items were added at the request of council members who were early supporters of the ballpark proposal. Others were added just this week to secure the votes of members who had been considering voting no.

That is all.

UPDATE: I neglected to point out that, just as public choice theory suggests will happen, His Honor is producing the wealth transfer efficiently by assembling a majority of only 7 of 13. This is efficient in two ways.

First, as Joe Kennedy observed, there's no need to purchase a landslide when a slim majority will do. Second, with only a one-vote majority everyone has an incentive not to defect. With a larger majority (say, eight supporters) you stand the chance that one tries to free-ride by reneging on the vote, counting on the others to sustain the majority, and trying to still reap the benefit of whatever was included in the legislation for his benefit. Of course, there are ways to retaliate against such dastardly and unhonorable behavior, but it can be avoided by assembling no larger a majority than you need.

UPDATE: The above was edited slightly to credit Joe Kennedy with his observation regarding optimal majorities.