In an old, but still on point op-ed, Donald Boudreax explains:

Shopping-mall Santas remind me of politicians. No joke.

Consider the similarities: each Santa sits upon a throne and receives from stangers demands for free goodies. Each child who asks for things from Santa asks for these somethings free of charge. Others – Santa and his elves – bear the full cost of supplying little Johnny with his bicycle and little Suzie with her doll.

Therefore, from the perspective of each child, requests made to Santa are costless – there’s no reason to hold back. Each child will request many more toys than he or she would buy if he or she had personally to pay the cost of making the toys.

Politicians are surprisingly like shopping-mall Santas.

Each elected official is routinely approached by representatives of this and that special-interest group – sugar farmers, labor unions, the steel industry, the textile industry, the plastic-bag industry and on and on and on. Each lobbyist asks elected officials for some special favor, usually a privilege that must be paid for by third parties.

There’s little reason, therefore, for lobbyists to moderate their requests. So they ask and ask and keep on asking. It’s actually quite a child-like arrangement. (Indeed, just as children often bellyache and whine when Christmas morning reveals that Santa did not fulfill every wish, interest groups often bellyache and whine when government doesn’t come through with every requested special privilege.) Of course, the analogy between shopping-mall Santas and politicians isn’t perfect.

Shopping-mall Santas are less harmful than politicians.

Read the whole thing.