What Are Tariffs For Special Interest Groups?
The single most important source of pressure for protective tariffs is powerful special interest groups. Forms and workers know very well that a tariff on their particular products will help them, whatever its effect on some abstract goal like total economic welfare. If free trade is so beneficial to the nation as a whole, why do the proponents pf protectionism continues to wield such a disproportionate influence in congress? The few who benefit gain much from specific protection and therefore devote large sums to lobbying politicians. By contrast, individual consumers are only slightly affected by the tariff on one product; because losses are small and widespread, individuals have little incentive to spend resources expressing an opinion on every tariff case. A century age, outright bribery was used to get the votes necessary to pass tariff legislation. Today, powerful political action committees, financed by labor or business, round up lawyer and drum up support for tariffs or quotas
