Chip Taylor

The social cost of rent-seeking

It's not the money that the ultimate recipients get from the public coffer; that money is merely a transfer. It's the money that is spent to obtain the transfer.

Although the City Hall steps are often clotted with people buttonholing politicians with leaflets and whispered pleas for money, the unusually expensive requests found in the Parkside memo, and a few others like it, touched a nerve for some council members and good-government groups. They say it represents a culture of lobbying that is spiraling out of control.

The memo is one of several that have been distributed to council members by professional lobbyists, who are increasingly being hired, often for $40,000 to $60,000 a year, by nonprofit organizations that want city money for the health, cultural and social service programs they operate. The amount paid to lobbyists by these and other clients seeking influence in City Hall hit a record $34 million last year.

That's $34 million that could have been spent on something productive.

"I think it's unfortunate that a lot of these nonprofit groups, even the small ones, feel the only way they can get in the door is to hire a lobbyist. That's disgraceful," said Councilman Tony Avella, Democrat of Queens. "They shouldn't have to go out and hire these people, at exorbitant fees, which comes out of the money we give them."

Parkside says the fees are paid from other funds.

Mr. Stavisky added that it was Parkside's policy to require that none of its nonprofit clients paid their lobbying fees from the proceeds of city money appropriated for them during the budget process.

Give me a break. Can you say fungible? I thought you could.