Corrupt Career Politicians

It is highly unlikely that the founder's of our nation ever considered the possibility that our elected public officials would spend their entire working lives in one of our state capitals or Washington DC. If they had, our constitution undoubtedly would have included a clause or amendment pertaining to term limits. However, in 1776, such a law would have been unnecessary because we were an agrarian nation of farm and plantation owners whose livelihoods depended on the crops they could produce, not on the paltry stipends they would receive while serving in a government office. In this respect, from 1789 to 1815 congressmen received $6.00 a day and, interestingly, they were paid only if they showed up for work. At the time of our nation's founding, it was a significant imposition for politicians to leave their farms and places of business to serve in a public office. They made this sacrifice because they cherished their country and, as good citizens, felt compelled to serve. But, with rare exception this compulsion did not oblige them to serve more than one or two terms. At that point they either ran for higher office or, as was most often the case, when home. As we moved from an agrarian society to an industrial nation things began to change and not necessarily for the better. At some point in time, probably around the beginning of the twentieth century, politicians tumbled to the fact that they could make more money in government than they could in the private sector. Public service became a pretty good racket with a good salary and many, not so well hidden, perks. For example, if you were a congressman or a senator wanted to make more money you did not have to ask the boss for a raise or increase the acreage of your tobacco farm. Nope, you could just vote yourself a raise and, as long as the legislation authorizing the increase in salary included something for the president, he was likely to sign it. But the real money to be made in public service is unrelated to salaries, medical care or lucrative retirement packages. Rather, the real money comes from the use and sale of the power inherent in any public office whether it be dog catcher, state or federal legislator or head of state. Occasionally a member of the ruling class gets caught with his pants down (to date corrupt female politicians have escaped scot free) and is forced to spend a little time in a federal prison. This is particularly likely to happen in Illinois where their mentally challenged politicians are exceptionally brazen in their self-serving illegal abuses of power and, thus, more apt to be caught in one of their nefarious and endless get-rich schemes than are the average politicians in other parts of the country. But, governmental abuses of power are not limited to crooked politicians from Illinois. No, dirty self-serving career politicians are a dime a dozen and come from every region of our nation. Here are two well known examples of political corruption that should make you grit your teeth and spit nails. Lyndon Banes Johnson began his working life as a near penny-less high school teacher. Thereafter, before being forced into retirement because of the Vietnam debacle in 1969, he spent his entire working life as a public servant in Washington DC. This consummate career politician died a multimillionaire. Most of his fortune was made in his wife's name but, as Robert A. Caro explains in The Years on Lyndon Johnson: means of ascent, Johnson was very adept at using his political clout behind the scenes to grease the skids for his wife's various nefarious business deals which made her, and him, a fortune. Possibly the most outrageous example of the abuse of power by a career politician is the shenanigans of California's liberal Senator Dianne Feinstein. Feinstein and her husband Richard Blum are worth an estimated 100 million dollars. As was the case with LBJ, whose money was made in the name of his wife, Lady Bird, Feinstein's money has been accumulated in the name of her investor banker husband Richard C. Blum. Much of Blum's wealth was made in federal governmental contracts brokered for him by his wife Senator Dianne Feinstein who, as a member of several important senatorial committees including, most importantly, the appropriations committee, has tremendous clout in the halls of congress. It is highly unlikely that Blum could have been as successful in his business dealing with the government if his wife had not been a powerful US senator who worked behind the scenes to steer government contracts his way. The most notorious of the deals senator Feinstein cooked up, to feather her own nest, occurred in 2009 when she introduced legislation that provided $25 billion in tax payer money to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. This agency then awarded her husband's real estate firm, Blum Capital, a lucrative contract to sell millions of dollars worth of foreclosed properties at rates higher than industry norms. The most recent example of the Dianne Feinstein's nepotism involves the contemplated sale of 56 US post offices throughout the United States. These properties are worth billions of dollars and the firm brokering the deal will make millions of dollars in commissions. It should come as no surprise to learn that Richard C. Blum's real estate firm will be handling these transactions. Meanwhile, senator Feinstein fly's around in her 55 million dollar Gulfstream jet claiming that she is an innocent bystander and knows nothing. Well, she knows how to use her political clout to make money, lots of it, that's for sure. The net worth's of our public servants in Washington DC tells the whole rotten story. In 2011 the average US congressman was worth $6,594,859 and the average U.S. senator was worth a whopping $14,013,596! Now it's true that some of these people were wealthy before they ran for public office and some, like John Kerry, married into their money while in office. But most of the newcomers to Washington DC were not all that wealthy when they first got there. In fact, the net worth of the 94 new senators and representatives in 2011 was only $1.07 million, much higher than the $66,740 of the average American, but substantially less than that of their more senior colleagues and undoubtedly far less than they will be worth at the end of their dubious political careers in Washington DC. No, in the days of our founding fathers men went to Washington DC to serve their country. Today, with rare exception, the career politician goes to our nation's capital to make money, it's really as simple as that! Unfortunately, their corrupt political practices are ruining the country in the process.