Amateur Hour In D.C., Part 3 - The Three Forms Of Political Class Corruption

This is our third in a serious of posts where we examine how amateurish our political class is when it comes to operating our various levels of government. Of all of the issues facing the nation and American families, most top ten lists would include such major topics as our failing public schools, our lost war on drugs, escalating health care costs, high unemployment, the insolvency of Social Security and Medicare, the lack of a rational and effecive national energy policy, and onerous national debt that will burden current and future generations of taxpayers. By just about any logical, quantifiable, or other reality-based measure, our political class has either not gotten around to fixing any of these problems, does not want to fix any of these problems, or most likely, has no idea how to fix any of these problems. Amateur hour.

One reason for their distraction from solving any problems may come down to one ugly word: corruption. Consider some of the ugly corruption headlines that we have unfortunately come across the past six months or so:

 "California Council Accepts Resignation of Three Managers" - Associated Press, 7/23/10. These city managers had managed to arrange salaries for themselves that were obnoxiously high.

"Fraud Gets Ex-Obama, Clinton Fundraiser 12 Years" - Associated Press, 7/15/10

"House Panel Charges Rangel With Ethics Violations" - Associated Press, 7/22/10

"Rangel Case Disturbing, Some Dems Say Resign" - Associated Press, 7/31/10

"Dems Say Swamp Of Corruption Drained" - Associated Press, 8/2/10

"TARP Recipients Spend $114 Milllion In Lobbying" - Opensecretsblog.com

"Kerry Dodges Massachusetts Boat Taxes" - The Week, 8/10/10

"Ethics Violations" - USA Today, 8/16/10

"3 Corruption Trials In New Jersey" - Associated Press, 10/6/10

"Audit - City Mismanaged over $50 Million In Funds" - Associated Press, 9/22/10

"Candidates For (NM) Governor Talk Corruption" - KRQE, 9/22/10

"Casino Owners, Senators Charged In Alabama Bingo Probe" - Associated Press, 10/4/10

"Congressional Aides Buy Bank Stocks" - The Week, 10/22/10. This article discussed how Congressional staffers, working for politicians working who would determine what banks got how much bailout money, used this insider trading information to get the edge in bank stock purchasing.

"Franks Gets Campaign Cash From Bailed Out Banks" - Associated Press, 10/22/10. Congressman Barney Franks' conflict of interest behavior - getting campaign donations from the industry he is supposed to oversee and regulate.

"Reid Aide Admits To False Immigration Marriage" - St. Petersburg Times, 10/26/10

"California Welfare Recipients Waste Welfare Money" - The Week, 11/12/10

"California Lawmakers Keep Vehicle Perk" - Associated Press, 12/10. Despite facing a huge budget shortfall for their state, California politicians continue to be the only state in the union that pays for cars for their state politicians.

Ex-Senator Chris Dodd's quote on how money perverts our election process - Businessweek, 12/6/10

This small sample of corruption and politics is illustrative of the first two types of corruption in our political class today. The first type is conflict of interest corruption. In this area, we see how politicians use their positions of power and trust to take campaign donations from the very industries and companies that they are supposed to be providing protection from for the American public. Congressman Barney Franks accepts campaign donations from banks even though he was the chairman of the House committee responsible for overseeing the banking industry and the bailout of banks in that industry. Congressional staffers trade stocks of banks using insider trading they may have gleaned from their Congressional jobs, actions that would get regular Americans arrested for violating insider trading laws. Conflict of interest corruption can cause politicians to act in the best interests of themselves and those that benefit the politician, not the American public.

The second type of corruption illustrated above is one of simple greed. Senator John Kerry, one of the richest people in the entire country, decides to save tens of thousands of dollars in Massachusetts state taxes by stashing his yacht in Rhode Island. Alabama state senators get kickbacks from developers to vote favorablyy on casinos in their state. Corruption of this type becomes a campaign issue in New Mexico's governor race. This type of corruption diverts polticians attention from the problems that need to be solved in order to devote their focus and energies on how to game the system for their own personal benefit. This type of greed also results in sub-optimal political actions since the right answer and proper course of action is secondary to personal financial gain.

The third type of corruption has no examples listed above. This type of corruption is really a moral form of corruption. Consider the following list of leading politicians that many would think have had moral corruption problems, usually in the forms of tax evasion, adultery, and/or lying:

1. President Bill Clinton (adultery and lying)
2. New York Governor Eliot Spitzer (adultery and lying)
3. New Jersey James MacGreevey (adultery and lying)
4. South Carolina Governor Stamford (adultery and lying)
5. U.S. Senator John Ensign (adultery and lying)
6. U.S. Senator John Edwards (adultery and lying)
7. Ex-Senator Tom Daschle (tax evasion)
8. Treasury Secretary Geithner (tax evasion)

Adultery and tax evasion probably takes a lot of energy and focus, energy and focus that cannot be used to focus on solutions to real problems.

I do not know how much corruption contributes to the political class inability to solve any problem. This inability and nonperformance may be a combination of a number of factors including various forms of corruption, the lack of desire to solve any of the major issues, or the intellectual inability to solve the major issues. The bottom line is that failing public schools, the war on drugs, illegal immigration, high taxes, etc. never get seriously addressed, never mind solved.

Several steps form "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" would go a long way to eliminating the factors that contribute to this sad, amateurish situation:

• Step 6 would only allow individual Americans to contribute to election campaigns in order to remove the factor of money out of our politics and eliminate the many conflicts of interest we suffer from today such as Congressional members receiving money for the companies they have oversight responsibility for.
• Step 38 would require all politicians to take an annual oath of ethics and shared values so they at least are told what proper behavior is from a corruption perspective.
• Step 39 would implement term limits for all politicians to remove the corruption of re-election campaigns out of our politics. It would also provide a continuous stream of new people with new ideas into our political system with the hope that these new people might eventually solve our oldest problems. Those politicians that have been in office for twenty, thirty or more years have proven that they cannot solve these problems.

We will never solve our major issues until we have at least minimized the corruption within our political class and get them focused on these issues rather than their current focus on their re-election campaigns, their personal financial advancement (either through maximizing their cash inflows or minimizing their tax outflows), or their adulterous affairs. Until we get professional, serious, and focused people in Washington, we will still be in the confines of of amateur hour.







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