In today's Wall Street Journal, John Fund asks an odd question: Is Congress's GOP majority becoming as corrupt as the Democrats were?
What's odd about it is that he would even ask it. Isn't that obvious?
Mind you, it's slightly unfair. There were a couple of scandals that culminated in the Democrats losing control of the Congress in 1994: a very powerful chairman of a very powerful committee named Dan Rostenkowski got caught taking what amounted to huge bribes over a long period of time, and there was a scandal where a large number of congressmen were caught ripping off the congressional bank. But we see no sign of such scandals at the moment.
That doesn't mean they aren't lurking while we are unaware, but there's no reason to believe it until we see it.
But beyond those quibbles, it is of course without question that the Congress will always have some corruption and abuse in it, no matter which party is in charge. For several reasons:
1) There are 535 members--435 congressmen, 100 Senators. Pick any random pool of 535 powerful people, and how many do you think will be corrupt? 2%? That would mean at least 11 corrupt members of Congress. 5%? That would mean a couple of dozen or so.
2) The way our system is now structured encourages pork barrel spending, where people in Congress get special favors done for their districts. This isn't illegal, but it's corrupt in the sense that it makes our government about which congressman or Senator can get the most goodies for his constituents at the expense of the rest of the country.
3) Any member of the House or Senate who leaves, for any reason (voted out, retires, resigns, whatever) has lifelong floor privileges. That means they are entitled, almost any time they want to, to go out on the floor of the House or Senate and chat up anyone who's there. They very often get high-paid jobs as lobbyists, because they have better access than anyone else.
Those currently serving have no reason to reform that, because they themselves probably always keep in mind that if they ever get voted out, or decide to retire, they can make a good living doing the exact same thing.
Now, I must stress something: lobbying is not a bad thing. In fact, for all the bloviating people sometimes do about "lobbyists" and "special interests," the simple fact is that lobbying is a Constitutionally protected activity.
What? You didn't know that? Have a look at the 1st Amendment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Every citizen--every citizen--has a right to speak to an elected official about any grievance he has. And a "grievance" might well be, "these taxes are hurting my business," "these new regulations are going to make me have to fire some employees," "we're in the energy business and foreign competition is killing us," and so on.
This is why, by the way, if you really want to you can usually get an appointment to see your congressman. Just call his local office and ask when he's in town, and say you'd like to see him. You can usually get an appointment, especially if you're associated with some group.
I repeat, there is nothing--nothing--corrupt or evil about lobbying. It is a Constitutionally protected activity, and a free, democratic republican form of government like ours could not function sanely without it.
The "corruption" in the process comes in when the Federal government has its fingers in so many pies no one individual can possibly keep track of everything that's going on, and when members of Congress start making sweetheart deals for former members who are now lobbyists, or make deals with certain lobbyists to help them out in exchange for a tacit promise of a job offer later on.
None of this is strictly illegal, although there's something rotton about it. On the other hand, I have yet to see a successful proposal to stop it.
Some things that would help would include limiting the number of terms anyone could serve in Congress, making it illegal for them to become lobbyists for at least, oh, 5 or 6 years after leaving office, giving the President a line-item veto to cut down on pork barrel spending, and so on. Unfortunately, only one of these measures (the line item veto) was ever passed by Congress, and the Supreme Court promptly declared it unConstitutional.
Thus we have a system that is hopelessly corrupting in certain ways. The only real question is, is it all that bad? The older I get, the less I'm inclined to think so. Yes, it's annoying. But the political will to fix it does not seem to be there. And so, certain behavior that isn't illegal but is a bit shady will always be there. I expect the Republic can survive so long as it's kept to manageable levels.
I repeat, there is nothing--nothing--corrupt or evil about lobbying.
None of this is strictly illegal, although there's something rotton about it.
Uh, Dean?
Anyway, looking for a scandal?
Dean, how can you be so sanguine about congressional corruption? Obviously the system is fatally flawed because it doesn't provide us with honest-to-goodness wings-and-harps singing-praise-to-God angels to elect to Congress.
It's sad but true. The Republicans have learned the easy way to maintain power is to bribe the people with their own money.
Worked for the Democrats for forty years.
But this is the cycle of democracy.
I remember Bush the First in a townhall meeting back in 92 answer a question about helping out a specific constituency. He took the occasion to make a point.
Paraphrased, it was 'I wonder why all of the questions we receive in a campaign are about what the federal government is going to do for people. That's dangerous because it removes the will of individuals to make a difference for themselves and their communities.'
It was the basis of his thousand points of light ideas. The crowd hated it.
Clinton spoke next and promised a boatload of goodies, much as he did in every State of the Union speech I ever heard him give.
And thus the republic falls into gentle night. The demagogue will always win because they promise new riches for the masses. The reasoned voice is drowned out in cries of supplication for access to the federal teat. In many ways, the public is no different than the Roman soldiers paid to large sums when a new emperor was crowned. Quickly, the soldiers learned to support whoever was new to gain their reward.
Quickly, the Roman civilization faded into corruption and tyranny.
Yes, the Republicans are corrupt. But what should they do? If they fail to deliver, they will be swept from power. The only question when pulling the lever for a party is how quickly you seek ruin.
Max: Yeah, I heard about that one a few months ago. Well we'll see how that plays out. So far looks like hearsay to me, based on what may have just been careless words. We'll have to see if more comes out on it--if it does, then those Republicans need an ass-whupping.
Although I note, ironically, that it doesn't seem to have made much difference even if it was true. After all, as we all know now, money doesn't win campaigns. Right? :-)
McGehee: I guess I meant to say, but did not, that if you take the long view of history, Congress in our era is considerably less corrupt than it was 50, 100, 150, or 200 years ago. At least as far as very serious corruption goes. Just look at the alleged scandal Max points to above. It is still just allegations, but let's say they are completely true. In point of fact there would have been nothing at all illegal about it 50 or 100 years ago, and nothing but a public embarassment at most.
Our officials now face greater scrutiny, and greater penalties if they get caught, than ever before.
I wish the pork problem could be dealt with but it's clear that the political will isn't there to do it. If you look at size of the government, the size of the deficit, the size of the national debt, as compared to the Gross Domestic Product or the average income of most citizens, it's all smaller today than it has been at several points in the past.
So my point is, again: 535 powerful people. Do you expect 100% of them to be spotless? I mean, okay, that's your ideal, but you're not going to get it.
So in a way you're asking me if I am "sanguine about murder." After all, there are many thousands of murders in the United States each year. Am I happy about that? No. Do I find it "acceptable?" Uh, that's like asking me if I find earthquakes acceptable. They are a fact of life, and my acceptance or non-acceptance is not in question.
The real question is, "is the murder rate getting better or getting worse?" And actually, if you look at the annual murder rate in the U.S. (not the raw number, which tends to go up with the population, but the overall rate per 100,000 people), the murder rate has been dropping in the U.S. for at least the last decade. Would you call that good news? I would.
In the biggest war America has fought since Vietnam, we are have lost an average of 1 soldier per day since it began, and the rate has gone down and stabilized. Would you call that good? Since I consider it a very necessary and just war, I consider it good news indeed, even if every death hurts me a little.
If you do a major construction project--say, a skyscraper--a dirty little secret is that architects and insurance carriers usually get together and compute how many construction workers and bystanders will be killed during construction. This has been going on for decades, and still happens on every big construction project. Every one.
I mean it. Every. Single. One.
If you build a skyscraper, you plan on having some people die. Period.
Is that acceptable? Well over the last 50 years, thanks in part to government action, but in equally large part due to insurance carriers, workplace safety rules, and construction methods, have improved to where you can now often run calculations that say "this construction project will likely cause 0.8 deaths" (i.e. probably one, maybe zero, unless something goes wrong). Whereas in historic construction projects like the Brooklyn Bridge, the Empire State Building, etc. quite a few people died in construction accidents.
One answer is to say "no more big construction projects." Another is, "everyone who works in construction knows there's some risk, but we're going to reduce the risk as best we can."
So, am I saying construction deaths are "acceptable?" Uhm, really, it's kind of the wrong question, unless you're asking me if I think we should never have any more large construction projects.
Am I making sense here? I don't think congress is all that corrupt today. I don't think it was all that corrupt back when Democrats were last in charge either, although that banking scandal and the Rostenkowski situation pretty much did justify them getting a spanking.
Hey, Yeti?
By my calculations, Roman civilization took a minimum of 1400 years to collapse--really more like 2100 years, depending on how you count it.
Ya really think we're in our twilight right now after only 225 or so years? That our level of corruption is really that bad?
If you look at it not as a raw number, but as a total percentage of our net worth as a people, are we really spending all that much on government?
Not that I'm saying we should spend a lot more. I'm just asking.
The Romans had a murder rate too. Think theirs was higher, or lower? :-)
Corruption is not the problem.
And we're not the Roman empire. But the death of the Roman empire is different than the hundreds of years barbarians spent picking over its corpse, sitting at her throne, or assuming the title in a different part of the world. Should we say the death of the Roman Republic was Sulla? Caeser? How about the destruction of Carthage?
The Roman Republic lasted but 460 some years from the last Etruscan king to the victory of Caeser over Pompey. This was in a time breathtakingly slow by our standards.
Rome lost its will when it's best men ceased looking outward and focused on the creature comforts within.
Societies move forward or they collapse inward. But there is a point of no return for a civilization - a point where the will of a people is spent, when civilized actions cannot reverse decay.
September 11th, some people thought, would create a change, an upheaval in how we lived. I do believe it slowed the tide of decay. I'm sure this period of history will be fascinating for future generations of military and intelligence history buffs. But future social historians will point to the growing belief of the majority of the voting population in the power of government to make their lives better as the downfall of the American republic.
That is the death knell of every society that cannot be conquered by a force outside itself. It is a rhythm of nature.
We rail against this in the center and far right of the blogosphere. But think of Kim du Toit. He moved from Chicago to Texas to avoid centralized government. Where will he move when that centralization comes to Texas? Where in the country have you ever seen a true lessening of regulatory burdens?
I do believe we are in twilight. It may last 100 years or more, but a country more concerned with their comfort than with growth is an easy target for young populations believe in Manifest Destiny.
Look at India and China. Their young people want to build. Ours want to maintain.
So in a way you're asking me if I am "sanguine about murder."
Uh. No.
Maybe I should have appended a </humor> tag on my comment.
I have often maintained (not that it's an original thought) that the best, and perhaps only way to reduce government corruption is to reduce government's power and scope.
No power over X, nothing to abuse regarding X or to sell either for or against X.
Yeti,
Those were excellent posts. You make many interesting and accurate observations. I will add this quote:
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury. From that time on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.
The average age of the world's great civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence:
from bondage to spiritual faith;
from spiritual faith to great courage;
from courage to liberty;
from liberty to abundance;
from abundance to selfishness;
from selfishness to complacency;
from complacency to apathy;
from apathy to dependency;
from dependency back again to bondage."
-Alexander Fraser Tytler
The _style_ of that is excellent and mostly profoundly true. See Oswald Spengler's "The Decline of the West". (Actually, the average age of the world's great civilizations has been about 1000 years.)