On NPR’s “Morning Edition,” Peter Overby discusses the way lobbyists are adjusting to the new Republican Congress. Some are hiring former Republican lawmakers and congressional staff. Some are reminding clients that there are still two parties, as in this nice ad for superlobbyist Heather Podesta, former sister-in-law of White House eminence John Podesta:

OVERBY: Even in a Republican Congress, lobbyists will need to court Democrats, too. Heather Podesta is happy to point that out. She runs her own small Democratic firm.

HEATHER PODESTA: The power of the Congressional Black Caucus has really grown.

OVERBY: In fact, she says CBC members are expected to be the top-ranking Democrats on 17 House committees and subcommittees.

PODESTA: Corporate America has to have entree into those offices. And we’re very fortunate to have the former executive director of the Congressional Black Caucus as part of our team.

After every election, the lobbyists and the spending interests never rest. The challenge for the tea party and for groups such as the National Taxpayers Union is to keep taxpayers even a fraction as engaged as the tax consumers.

In the last analysis, as I’ve written many times before – and in my forthcoming book The Libertarian Mind – the only way to reduce the influence of lobbyists is to shrink the size of government. 

As Craig Holman of the Nader-founded Public Citizen told Marketplace Radio, “the amount spent on lobbying … is related entirely to how much the federal government intervenes in the private economy.” Marketplace’s Ronni Radbill noted then, “In other words, the more active the government, the more the private sector will spend to have its say…. With the White House injecting billions of dollars into the economy, lobbyists say interest groups are paying a lot more attention to Washington than they have in a very long time.”

Big government means big lobbying. When you lay out a picnic, you get ants. And today’s federal budget is the biggest picnic in history.

Through Tammany Hall, the New York City Democratic political machine in the late 19th century, “Boss” William M. Tweed essentially controlled the city’s government and much of the state’s. Like most political leaders he never felt entirely secure, and he tried to bully his opponents, including journalists. He is famously reported to have been especially outraged by cartoonists such as Thomas Nast, and to have roared to his associates,

Let’s stop them damn pictures. I don’t care so much what the papers write about—my constituents can’t read—but damn it, they can see pictures.

It seems that Islamic extremists may feel the same way. Theo van Gogh was murdered after producing a film about Islam. The publication of cartoons about Muhammad in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten generated much outrage and numerous death threats. And now we have the brutal murders of cartoonists and other journalists from the French newspaper Charlie Hebdo. At least Boss Tweed just used bribery and corrupt politics to ruin his enemies.

Walter Olson wrote eloquently in Time magazine yesterday about the Charlie Hebdo murders and the challenge they present to liberal society:

There is no middle ground, no soft compromise available to keep everyone happy–not after the murders at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. Either we resolve to defend the liberty of all who write, draw, type, and think–not just even when they deny the truth of a religion or poke fun at it, but especially then–or that liberty will endure only at the sufferance of fanatical Islamists in our midst. And this dark moment for the cause of intellectual freedom will be followed by many more.

Flemming Rose, the editor who commissioned the Jyllands-Posten cartoons, writes about threats to free speech in his book The Tyranny of Silence, published recently by the Cato Institute, and in various articles and interviews.

And herewith my favorite Thomas Nast cartoon, not primarily about Boss Tweed’s corruption, but about “Peace with a War Measure” – peace and liberty shackled by the income tax.

While other matters dominate the headlines, American governments continue to spend more money, despite the presumed effects of the Great Recession. Washington Post reporter Abha Bhattarai lays out the latest details:

State and local governments in Maryland, Virginia and the District spent $7.82 billion more than they collected in revenue between 2007 and 2012, during the throes of the economic downturn, according to data released from the U.S. Census Bureau last month….

State and local governments in Virginia spent $1.03 billion more than they took in between 2007 and 2012, while expenditures in Maryland outpaced earnings by $6.07 billion….

Nationally, state and local governments spent $118.15 billion more than they collected between 2007 and 2012. Total expenditures during that period increased by 18.2 percent, from $2.7 trillion to $3.2 trillion, while total revenue declined 3.2 percent over the same five-year period, from $3.1 trillion to $3.0 trillion.

Over that five-year period, plenty of businesses, families, and nonprofits found their revenue declining by more than three percent, and most responded by spending less.

Of course, it’s often said that governments spend when times are good and the tax revenue is rolling in, then find themselves over-extended and facing painful cuts when growth slows down. But the evidence above suggests that governments just keep spending even as the money stops rolling in. It’s exceedingly difficult to get governments to spend less, especially when every government dollar helps to create pro-spending constituencies who will resist cuts. Spending interests never rest; taxpayer groups have to work twice as hard just to hold the line.

One side note: The online headline for this article is

State, local governments continue to spend more than they earn

Actually, I don’t think governments “earn” money. Merriam-Webster defines “earn” as “to receive as return for effort and especially for work done or services rendered.” Governments don’t earn, they take. Just try saying “I don’t find your services worth the money, and I won’t be renewing my contract.”

For more on state government spending, see Cato’s latest “Fiscal Policy Report Card on America’s Governors.”