a burgeoning infrastructure of alternative media, foundations like heritage, research centers, thinktanks, publishing houses, law firms, homeschooling networks and more. from the beltway to the blogosphere, these clusters of purposeful energy continue to multiplied and flourish. they comprise a significant part of what has been called the influence industry in washington. from the perspective of a historian, this flooring of applied conservatism if you will, this is leopard deinstitutionalization of conservative impulses and ideas is a remarkable intellectual and political development. think of it. when amanat conservative thinkers like william f. buckley jr., richard weaver and russell kirk were riding in the 1950's and early 1960's, the number of publicly active professing conservative intellectuals in the united states was minuscule. today, how can we even begin to count? since 1980, prosperity has come to american conservatism and with that a multitude of niche markets and specialization on 8,000 friends. the fruit of a generation of successful conservative institution building has re

. -- thinktanks. with support for them, is $3.10 billion. if you accounted for all of those activities including marketing for products to the executive branch and a lobbying the federal regulatory process where vague bills get defined , you may have $9 billion. it is a good business. it is a business that needs more transparency. when i went to the white house, the head of the ethics office there took me to lunch. i was very impressed with myself. he said, what would you do differently? i said, we need more regis -- transparency. you need more people to register, and you need enforcement. there are some many referrals from capitol hill to the justice department over the last five years without a single investigation of prosecution. we not only need transparency if what is going on -- i think it helps the democracy. secondly, you need enforcement. the hill leads enforcement to the ethics committees. i think they're not doing their job right now. the house is being pushed by the office of public integrity, and that helps. if you look back to