[Dialogue] Corruption Goes Unchecked; Congress in Need of Real Reform

[Harry Wainwright]

Published on Tuesday, February 21, 2006 by WorkingforChange.com
<http://www.workingforchange.com/printitem.cfm?itemid=20388>  

Corruption Goes Unchecked; Congress in Need of Real Reform 

by Molly Ivins 

 

AUSTIN, Texas - Cynics are fond of meditating on the evil done in the name
of reform. I'm a great believer in perpetual reform myself, on the theory
that political systems, like houses, are always in want of some fixing.
However, I have seen some pluperfect doozies passed off as reform in recent
years, starting with "Social Security reform." 

Conservatives used to oppose reform on principle, correctly regarding it as
a vile plot by goo-goo good government forces to snatch away their perks.
This once led to a colorful scene in the Texas legislature in which the
letters R*E*F*O*R*M appeared on the rear ends of six female members of a
baton drill team, who turned and perched their derrieres pertly on the brass
rail of the House gallery. 

Reform follows scandal as night the day, except in these sorry times when it
appears we may not get a nickel's worth of reform out of the entire Jack
Abramoff saga. Sickening. A real waste of a splendid scandal. When else do
politicians ever get around to fixing huge ethical holes in the roof except
when they're caught red- handed? Do not let this mess go to waste! Call now,
and demand reform! 

Sheesh. Tom DeLay gets indicted, and all the Republicans can think of is a
$20 gift ban. Forget the people talking about "lobby reform." The lobby does
not need to be reformed, the Congress needs to be reformed. This is about
congressional corruption, and it is not limited to the surface stuff like
taking free meals, hotels and trips. This is about corruption that bites
deep into the process of making laws in the public interest. The root of the
rot is money (surprise!), and the only way to get control of the money is
through public campaign financing. 

As long as the special interests pay to elect the pols, we will have
government of the special interests, by the special interests and for the
special interests. Pols will always dance with them what brung them. We have
to fix the system so that when they are elected, they got no one to dance
with but us, the people - we don't want them owing anyone but the public. So
the most useful reform bill is being offered by Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., and
Rep. Barney Frank, D- Mass. - public campaign financing. We, the citizens,
put up the money to elect the pols. This bill won't cost us money, the
savings will be staggering. 

We're also looking for a way to control the system of earmarks, which has
gotten completely out of hand. "The rush to revise ethics laws in the wake
of the Jack Abramoff political corruption scandal has turned into more of a
saunter," reports The Washington Post. The Republicans keep dicking around
with the gift ban idea (opposed by those stalwarts who claim "you couldn't
accept a t-shirt from your local high school"). But the best anti-reformer
is Rep. John Boehner, R- Ohio, the new House majority leader, elected as a
"reformer" (puh- leeze), a man after Tom DeLay's heart. Boehner argues that
gift and travel bans would amount to members of Congress being "treated like
children." (Actually, children are seldom offered golfing vacations.) 

The lobbyists, of course, have pulled together to work against efforts to
control them. Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly. Tom Susman, chair of the
ethics committee of the American League of Lobbyists (it is a concept), is
reported in Legal Times as saying a gift ban would lead to "unnecessarily
awkward dividing lines between lobbyists and members." God forbid. 

The House Democratic leadership has proposed reinforcing a gift and travel
ban with an attempt to control earmarks by prohibiting "dead of night"
provisions - inserting language into a law without a chance for review.
Members would be given 24 hours to read bills (which they don't, but their
staffs can). 

The cosmetic fixes - gift ban, travel ban, disclosure and slowing the
revolving door between staff, Congress and the lobby - cannot stop the
effects of the K Street Project. That's the cozy arrangement whereby
lobbyists are Republican activists and Republican activists are lobbyists,
and they underwrite campaigns in return for special privileges under the law
- tax exemptions, regulatory relief, tariff dispositions, etc. 

One of the most dangerous things about this whole corrupt system is that
people who are given special privileges inevitably come to regard them not
as special but as natural and right, and will fight furiously if you try to
take them away. 

It is this endless series of earmarks - special little set-asides for one
special interest, one home district after another - that is behind the
hemorrhaging in the federal budget. Those who remember when conservatives
called for fiscal restraint may get sour amusement from the situation. But
what is truly not funny is the pathetic spectacle of the United States of
America, a nation with the greatest political legacy the world has ever
known, letting itself be gnawed to death by the greed in a corrupt system
that can be so easily fixed. 

C Copyright 2006 Creators Syndicate

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