Clamping down on conference freebies

The Obama administration’s Office of Government Ethics has proposed a new rule under which most federal employees would be prohibited from accepting free admission to conferences and other gatherings held by businesses or organizations that lobby Washington.

Of course, under a government that continues to extend its regulatory tentacles everywhere, not engaging in self-defense can be a passport to disaster and potential dismemberment, as Microsoft learned from its antitrust shakedown a decade ago.

The American Hotel & Lodging Association represents an industry in the early stages of economic recovery, with 2011 room revenues on track to improve 7.2 percent over last year. But the fragility of that recovery led association president Joe McInerney to promptly slam the new ethics proposal last week, telling the Los Angeles Times, “Hotels are often the sites for conferences and events that federal employees would be banned from attending, thereby creating a direct negative impact to our business.”

Here in Nevada, convention operators don’t seem to believe the rule change would be a big deal.

“The proposed rule appears to have a minor impact on Las Vegas hotel operations,” said Virginia Valentine of the Nevada Resort Association in a statement Tuesday. “Accepting free attendance to events is a matter for the executive branch to determine. We trust the executive branch will exercise discretion in determining if a public benefit exists and require full transparency and accountability for federal employees allowed to accept any item of value.”

Yes, government regulators and policymakers must steer clear of accepting gratuities on a scale that might lead them, even subconsciously, to behave as though they owe favors to select businesses or industries. Does waiving an admission charge to an industry show or convention — even if it includes a simple chicken dinner — cross the threshold into that high-value category, providing the recipient duly reports such a minor gift?

Government agencies can certainly afford to buy tickets for their employees. But it would be unfortunate to further cut off the regulators from the workaday Joes who can report the real-world effects of our current thicket of red tape.

We’ll note in passing that this administration’s attempt to impose federal ethics standards at the street-corner level while blithely handing out half-billion-dollar “green energy” grants and loans to outfits backed by friends of the president — outfits that either ship the resulting jobs to Finland or promptly collapse like a house of cards — verges on the comic.

After more than three years of economic suffering, a president who has twice told the American public to stay away from Las Vegas should at least have learned to examine the likely real-world consequences of each new proposed turn of the thumbscrew.