The cornerstone of economics and the study of supply and demand is that as a good becomes more dear people become willing to pay more for that good. People are quite willing to pay for political favors in many forms because the stakes are high and the seats in Congress dear.

There are, then, two ways to remedy this. One is to tighten the Congressional purse strings. This is the libertarian dream. This won’t happen.

The other less effective method might just be increasing - say twofold - the number of seats in Congress. It doesn’t change what the House as a whole controls, it doesn’t change the sum of the stakes. But it greatly dilutes each seat’s power and would, I think, make it more difficult for lobbyists and campaign donors to buy a consolidated voice.

That, or it might lower the price of wrangling a voice and result in fewer but more serious breaches of political finance regulation.

Whatever the notion, we can be sure that the foxes will never legislate themselves out of the hen house.