People agree strong government does much good. Nothing new here.

But there is a change. Once it seemed that only the sophisticated, the cynical, and economists allied with the University of Chicago understood government's potentials for mischief. For a generation, the proportion of analysts writing on the pathologies and pitfalls of government power has grown. Today most alert citizens intuit the default position: government programs to transfer wealth, manage resources, or give preferential access, ultimately become engines of plunder.

That is the way the world has worked. Government still does much good, but there is a realization that political power implies real danger.

Absent relentless vigilance, careful monitoring, and real accountability for promises, stated goals are soon displaced by constituency preference. In this environment, the politician with the greatest charisma, empathy, and duplicity has the advantage. Being "The Great Communicator" or saying "I feel your pain" trumps having brilliant ideas and sound ethics. Politicians who believe their own lies and tell them well becomes stars--until they are found out.

This is the predictable consequence of government going beyond it basic functions of protecting life and liberty and becoming a redistribution machine. It's no surprise that the benefits go to the powerful, such as the American Education Association which delivers votes to politicians opposed to choice or vouchers or Archer Daniels Midland which gives campaign money to both parties.

When government becomes an engine of plunder, elections to national office become struggles over the controls. Who handles the steering wheels, turn signals, and gas pedals? Who gets to captain the ship trolling for money and power? Politicians find the winning strategy to be lying about policy intentions and prospective beneficiaries.

This strategy is not a constant. Rather, the strategy depends upon secrecy and varies with technology. Like the great Wizard of Oz pulling the levers behind the curtain, secrecy and anonymity are critical to maintaining power. Lifting the veil exposes abuses and dishonesty and pre-stages reform and replacement.

Technology plays a huge role. As technology improves, information becomes easier to gather, transmit, and receive. News of foul deeds travels farther and faster. Technological advances shorten the time it takes for the public at large to learn of political scandals, agency corruption, and crooked dealings.

We've seen a compression of revelation. It took a full generation for truths to emerge about the dishonesty and dirty tricks of LBJ and Nixon. Today Camcorders record transgressions and the Internet broadcasts them within hours. Rodney King showed us police abuse. And when the Park Service shoots bison in Yellowstone park, color pictures of the slaughter appear online. The time frame between sin and revelation is so compressed that President Clinton may face trial before leaving office. Newt Gingrich faced an ethics probe even before resuming office.

The old equilibrium shored up by deception and obscurity is shifting. As people learn of the venality and artifice involved in keeping up political excesses, the pressure for change increases. With more revelations, the iron triangle of elected politicians, federal agencies, and special interests is increasingly at risk. It's ever harder to hide behind the mask of good intentions. It is easier to determine where slush funds flow, where political favors go, and how poor policy betrays the public trust. And it is easier to inform citizens who care.

As this compression of revelation exposes officials, truth and good character may actually become advantages rather than political liabilities. To all but parasites and manipulators, this is a improvement.

Economies and public policy, like ecosystems, evolve. Ours is evolving toward a more natural state, toward greater efficiency. Wasteful government programs once relied on the delay in revelation for their success. Special interests would become entrenched and cover-ups instituted. By the time the public wised up, the politicians were retired on retainers. But now revelation is occurring while politicians are still in office and hands still in the proverbial cookie jar. Eliminating the waste and abuse is now possible before it's too late.

In this evolution towards efficiency, we find conservationists and fiscal conservatives merging in to a natural coalition. (After 25 years of advocacy, I say it's about time.) This coalition of tree huggers and penny pinchers, called the "Green Scissors" movement, share the core revelation that effective government programs must harmonize economics with environmental quality. Those programs which waste our tax dollars also waste our environmental quality. There is a natural, organic link between public resources, be they trees or taxes.

"Green Scissors" is sounding the alarm about "unnatural" federal programs. Ethanol subsidies, below-cost timber sales, and massive dam projects are egregious examples of welfare for the well off. The Green Scissors folks are attacking those entrenched special interests and pork barrel projects. Such projects used to escape notice. Now they are being targeted. And their revelation will be our gain, both in our pocketbooks and our environment.