It has been clear for a while now that insulting the President colorfully in public can be a very lucrative act. The Glenn Becks and Rush Limbaughs of the world, for example, have substantially increased their net worth by liberally spewing hateful insults in his direction on a practically continuous basis.

But, clearly, you cannot study Beck or Limbaugh, and figure out the free market value of a single, high-profile act of presidential insult. What if a Senator or Congressman — Republican, or perhaps even Blue Dog? — wanted to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of throwing a rotten egg, or tomato, or even a well-worn shoe, at Barack Obama during the 2010 State of the Union address? How would they quantify the pecuniary benefit of proposed action?

You could always hire a consultant to produce some high-quality estimates (maybe someone who specializes in political economy?). But that’s not how things are supposed to work in a well-functioning market economy. One of the important functions of a free market is to facilitate resource allocation decisions by providing price discovery.

Fortunately, we have the Republican Party. And it now comes to the aid of the market for presidential insults by bringing us some good solid price data, providing all interested parties with a reliable baseline number for figuring out the market value of specific high-profile acts of outrage upon presidential dignity by an elected representative of the people.

Heckling the President during a joint address of Congress, unaccompanied by any airborne missiles, is apparently worth a little less than $2.7 million:

Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) has turned his “You Lie” outburst into what is likely to be the biggest third-quarter fundraising report in the House.

Wilson announced Thursday that his campaign raised $2.7 million in the third quarter and had $2.6 million cash on hand. That amount of money is more than twice as much as Wilson spent in his entire 2008 reelection race.

“More than 50,000 Americans have extended their steadfast support to me in recent weeks,” Wilson said in a statement. “It has been a humbling honor to have this support from my constituents and the American people.”

We say a little less than $2.7 million because Joe Wilson, no doubt, would have raised one or two hundred thousand in the third quarter even without that inspired moment of fund-raising brilliance. Of course, this is just the short-term pecuniary effect of Wilson’s heckle. There will, no doubt, also be future dividends, for several more quarters to come.

However, Wilson probably enjoys some degree of first-mover advantage. Rising to shout “You lie!” at a future presidential speech is unlikely to generate anywhere near the same cashflow stream again. But the free-market works on incentives, and the incentives are clear. Elected representatives wishing to match or top Wilson’s millions will just have to raise their game a bit, perhaps by the use of explicitly racist language, perhaps by the use of airborne missiles in conjunction with rude words.

In any case, at the rate Republicans are going, we shall no doubt have several more data points as the Obama presidency unfolds.