I'm Rich, Bitch

is what I will say after Kenneth Ducey buys up some of DC's 2,000 lobbying firms and takes them public. As David Boaz points out, there's a lot of money in DC's lobbying sector. Why shouldn't Joe Sixpack be able to buy some shares in it?

Some say high tech is coming back, or health care is the new growth area. But look at the growth in government.

As resources are pulled from around the country to the capital, Washington is thriving. Real estate prices have risen 89 percent in five years. Three of the four richest counties in America are Washington suburbs. Only two states had faster income growth last year than Washington, D.C.

Most of the federal government's activity involves taking money from some people, giving it to others, and keeping a big chunk here in Washington as a handling fee.
[snip]
The number of registered lobbying firms is up from 1,701 to 2,060 in the past six years. The number of companies with lobbyists is up 58 percent in the same period. And the amount of money officially spent by lobbyists has risen from $1.4 billion to $2.1 billion a year.

So how can you get in on this growth industry? Well, that's the good news.

A venture capitalist named Kenneth P. Ducey Jr. is trying to buy up some of those 2,000 lobbying firms and take them public. That means you could buy stock in a lobbying firm. And the next time you pick up the paper and read about congressmen being flown to Hawaii or Scotland, or free liquor at Capitol Hill receptions, you can know that your investment is hard at work creating a new tariff or entitlement or tax or subsidy for some special interest.

Sure, the taxpayers pay for all that. But you'll be on the inside, profiting from every subsidy and regulation as Washington's parasite economy grows and grows. Every man a king? Not likely. But now every man can be a lobbyist, or at least get a piece of the action.