The Washington Post has been running a series on its website (Citizen K Street) on the life of Gerald Cassidy, the preeminent entrepreneur of federal budget earmarking since the 1970s. Here are a few thoughts:

- Cassidy is a liberal Democrat, but a much more important aspect of his character seems to be his insatiable quest for money, money, money.

- Rather than adding to the nation’s gross domestic product, Cassidy earned his fortune of about $125 million as the middleman in the forced transfer of wealth from taxpayers to state and local recipient groups willing to play the Washington game.  

- Annual revenues of registered lobbyists in Washington have increased from $100 million in 1975 to $2.5 billion by 2006.

- The word “conservative” doesn’t have any meaning when it comes to big government spending. The Post describes former Rep. Jamie Whitten as a “conservative Mississippi Democrat,” yet Whitten was a famous pork barrel spender. The Post story also captures a smiling Tom Delay and Roy Blunt–supposedly staunch Republican conservatives– at a party in honor of Cassidy and Associates’ 30-year record of lobbying for pork.   

- Cassidy pioneered earmarking for universities and other state and local institutions. His firm provides a very high return on investment for his clients. One client paid Cassidy $1.3 million in fees and was rewarded with a $29 million taxpayer-funded earmark. Another client paid Cassidy $15 million and received $106 million in earmarks. And in another case, a client paid Cassidy $1.2 million and received a $15 million earmark.

- Washington tends to attract sharp, aggressive, amibitious people like Cassidy, who want to become rich, and don’t seem to care about limited government, constitutional government, good government, or the broad public interest. 

- When you combine democracy with the tremendous entrepreneurial abilities of folks like Cassidy, and some of the members of Congress he serves, the result is a federal government that will spend about $3 trillion this year.