Busting Up the 'Bureaupoly' : The Washington, D.C., area is home to fabulous wealth. Why not move those high-paying jobs to hard-hit areas?

Barron's reports:

While the rest of the country was reeling from the Great Recession, the D.C. metro area was barely nicked, a bitter irony given the role of Congress and the regulators in the genesis of that awful event. The census says the Washington area prospered for the past five years. And the most recent S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index shows that of all the major cities, D.C. as of October had the highest year-over-year increase in housing prices -- up 3.7%.

It's one thing for the nation's capital to be the seat of political power; but holy Louis the XVI! When wealth begins to concentrate here, too, it signals the existence of a privileged, ruling class that is siphoning off tax dollars to its own advantage.

THERE IS NO LAW THAT SAYS a federal department or agency must be headquartered in Washington. When Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniel was head of the White House Office of Management and Budget under President George W. Bush, he suggested holding a competition among the states for the privilege of domiciling the proposed Department of Homeland Security. He surmised that the federal government would get a sweetheart deal and that payroll costs would be substantially lower away from D.C. The Bush White House spiked his idea.

An interesting idea.