Professor Thomas DiLorenzo: Our monopoly government

The Washington Examiner has this flashback from Thomas DiLorenzo:

If the Sherman Antitrust Act applied to government, almost every member of the U.S. Congress would face millions in fines and possibly jail time. That's because the U.S. Congress is a monopolist par excellence.

Consider the U.S. House of Representatives, where 99 percent of incumbents won re-election in 2004;98 percent in 2000; and 96 percent in 1990. It's been that way for at least the past four decades with a few brief exceptions, such as the 1994 "Republican Revolution."

Politicians have created virtually insurmountable "barriers to entry" (to borrow a phrase from economics) that all but guarantee lifetime tenure to anyone elected to Congress. As with all other monopolies, this is bad news for consumers, in this case voters and taxpayers. Congressional incumbents know they must only pay lip service to "the will of the people," while largely ignoring their preferences.

Protection racket.