Market Correction

4 June 2009

Editor, Washington Post
1150 15th St., NW
Washington, DC 20071

Dear Editor:

Google CEO Eric Schmidt should not be surprised that Google's market success "has competitors sharpening their lobbying efforts" ("Tech Titans' Ties to Washington Grow Closer - and More Complicated," June 4).

Mr. Schmidt's father, the late Wilson Schmidt, was on the economics faculty at Virginia Tech many years ago when that university was home to the Center for Study of Public Choice - a group of scholars whose research shows that government serves well-funded and well-organized lobbies far more readily than it serves the public good. That the elder Mr. Schmidt was instrumental in furthering the research that reveals this reality is evidenced by the fact that the Center's library, now at George Mason University, proudly bears his name.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Director, Center for Study of Public Choice
and
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University