Charles Wheelan, Ph.D. The Naked Economist

I'm going to do something I've never done before in public: I'm going to defend our elected politicians.

True, the Bush administration is a disaster, for reasons I don't need to recount here. And the governor of my home state (Illinois) has taken incompetence to a new level. We still have no budget for the new fiscal year despite the fact that the Democrats control the governor's mansion, the House, and the Senate. With no meaningful political opposition, they've had to create gridlock on their own.

On a national level, Congress seems incapable of any meaningful bipartisan action. Immigration? Social Security? Health care? Curbing CO2 emissions? We'd be lucky to get reform in any one of those areas in the next two years, and I'd bet against even that.

So why am I willing to cut these guys a break? Because I've become increasingly convinced that we voters are the problem, not the people we send to Washington (or to Springfield, Sacramento, Concord, and so on).

Why can't politicians just "do the right thing"? Here are six reasons (most of which have more to do with us than them):

1. Because it's usually not clear what the "right thing" really is.

What's the right thing on abortion? Gay marriage? Even if you're sure that you know the right answer on those issues, I can assure you that there are about 100 million people who believe the opposite -- with equal certainty.

Even seemingly pragmatic issues like tax policy and health care have ideological components embedded within them. For example, you can't make any meaningful decision about the tax code without first deciding how progressive a "fair" tax system ought to be -- and that's a value judgment, not an economic question.

And you can't "fix" health care without first deciding whether every American deserves basic health care or not -- another question without a "right" answer.

Sometimes gridlock is just a clash of basic values.

2. Because voters seem unwilling to accept the pain or expense necessary to generate significant long-term benefits.

This is true whether the issue is raising the retirement age (one obvious and reasonable fix for Social Security) or instituting a carbon tax (the most efficient way to deal with climate change).

I often ask my students on the first day of class a seemingly simple question: "Why aren't there any policy changes that would make us better off without any corresponding pain or sacrifice?" There's usually silence for a while, and then I answer my own question: "Because if there were, don't you think Harry Truman would have done it? Or Bill Clinton? Or George W. Bush in his first term?"

If there were a way to make lots of Americans better off without making anyone worse off, then it would've happened a long time ago. Instead, we have many policy options for which the social benefits are likely to exceed the social costs -- but none that won't leave someone screaming.

3. Because most of us reward pork-barrel politics, whether we realize it or not.

Do you get angry when your elected representative brings home pork? Or do you go to the ribbon-cutting ceremony and thank Congressman Schmoe for adding a $23 million earmark to the transportation bill to build new playgrounds for your schools? If it's the latter, then you're part of the problem.

After all, how do you think Congressman Schmoe got that $23 million in federal money for something that should really be funded locally? Do you think he stood up on the floor of the House and gave such a moving speech about the merits of playgrounds that the members of Congress, many of them weeping openly, were moved to allocate the funds? Or do you think he made a series of deals in which three or four hundred other members of Congress also got millions of dollars for pet projects in their districts?

Hint: It's the latter.

4. Because organized interests will make life miserable for any politician who embraces many sensible economic policies.

In my short career as a Yahoo! columnist, I've called for a carbon tax; explained why we should privatize the postal service; criticized coal subsidies; advocated raising the retirement age; embraced free trade; and blamed the teachers' unions for some of our public education problems. (Actually, I can't remember if I've blamed the teachers' unions for anything yet, but I will soon.)

So, if I were to do something about public policy, rather than just write about it, I would begin my campaign with massive opposition from the oil and gas industry; the coal industry; most postal employees; the AARP; the teachers' unions; and every other union that's not keen on more trade with India and China.

And that's before I tell the world what I think about abortion, gay marriage, capital punishment, Guantanamo Bay, and legalizing drugs. I'd be lucky to get eight votes, including from my immediate family.

5. Because it's always easier to pass the problems along to the next generation.

Imagine a restaurant in which you had the option of paying your bill -- or leaving it on the table for the next customer to pay. Who among us wouldn't leave it on the table?

For a wide range of issues, such as Social Security and global warming, we can choose to "leave it on the table" and let the next generation deal with it. True, the harms grow over time, and the necessary fixes grow progressively more painful. But it won't be our pain.

We have a history of casting aside the politicians who advocate paying our own bill rather than sticking it to someone else.

6. Because being an elected representative is a really rotten job that discourages many of the best and brightest from public service.

And when they opt out, it leaves a vacuum for those individuals who 1) Crave power for its own sake, 2) Want to be famous but couldn't start a rock band, and/or 3) Plan to make some real cash by trading on their political experience once they leave office (if not sooner).

Let's assume that we would like our members of the House of Representatives and the Senate -- all 535 of them -- to be among the most talented and motivated individuals in the country. So, I suppose the business equivalent would be the CEOs of the Fortune 500 companies. (As the name would suggest, there are 500 of them.)

According to Forbes, the average total compensation for a Fortune 500 CEO is just over $15 million a year. The average member of the House or Senate makes around $170,000. But it's worse than that, because politicians have to live far more public lives than CEOs do. They get the media scrutiny of Paris Hilton while living on the salary of a high school superintendent.

I don't think we should pay politicians $15 million a year, but I wouldn't think twice about doubling or quadrupling their salaries. And that goes for judges and other public servants whom we expect to be really talented individuals.

True, these people are performing a public service, but so are doctors, and we don't ask them to work for 2 percent of what their skills would command elsewhere in the economy. In the long run, you get what you pay for.

The beauty of representative democracy is that our politicians give us what we want. Doesn't that make us the culpable party?