The Real Corruption Problem

So, two more (Democratic) Legislators fall by the wayside, unable to resist the siren call of easy money.

The Dems are doing the best they can to divorce this latest scandal from politics, contending that criminality knows no party affiliation. While I fully concur, I don't recall them being quite so charitable when DC Republicans found themselves immersed in scandal brought about by the aberrant actions of a few (Republican) miscreants. They gleefully pilloried the GOP for the misdeeds of Mark Foley, or the (asserted) misdeeds of Tom Delay, tarring with a very broad brush. But, now that their own criminal chickens have come home to roost, they object to drawing political conclusions therefrom.

The fact that (usually) urban Dems are crooked – either outright or suspect – has never been a secret. But, as Charles Peters sagaciously observed, the scandal lies not in the fact that some office holders are crooks, but in the fact that much of what they do is perfectly legal.

Wayne Bryant's self-enrichment program was never a secret. The scuttlebutt holds that one prominent Legislator now facing the wrath of the US Attorney once had five (5) members of his family on his legislative staff. You could hold a Camden City Council meeting at Southern State.

But even when the Dems do it (seemingly) legally, ala Menendez, it's still all about money: for themselves and – crucially – for their constituents, cronies, and supporters. Tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect. The Dems impose large taxes on people inclined to support Republicans and spend it on themselves and their friends. Occasionally, one of them gets greedy and steps over the legal line, taking too obvious a piece for himself. It always shocks me: with so many avenues to legally enrich yourself at public expense – if so inclined – why stoop to illegality? How greedy can you be?

Consider the multiple public jobs these folks tend to hold. While it pained me, personally, to see Al Steele (apparently) fall victim to temptation – especially for such a modest amount – the real scandal lay in holding multiple public jobs. Just what does an "undersheriff" do, anyway? And how is it that such an officer can find the time in his presumably full-time schedule to serve as both a minister and an Assemblyman? Ditto Joe Cryan: if he’s working as a full-time "undersheriff", where does he find the time to serve in the Assembly and as Chairman of the State Democratic Party?

The real scandal isn't that James, Bryant, and others took a small piece of the boodle for themselves; it's that the boodle exists at all. If you lived in Newark, why would you care about Sharpe’s (asserted) petty theft? YOU are doing very well -- thank you very much -- at the expense of Morris County taxpayers, and if James chooses to take a small gratuity, so what? It's not YOUR money, after all, that he's (allegedly) stealing. Chris Christie’s admonition to the voters – that they must police their own officeholders – rings hollow when the voters know about the corruption, but take no action, because its not THEIR money that the official steals. In fact, urban voters reward piracy, because they know that they benefit from the pillage.

The folks who replace these disgraced officials will be just as bad politically, even if (theoretically) more honest. They will continue to spend gazillions of other people’s money on their constituents, cronies, and supporters, and thumb their noses at those who object. Urban residents love it. The public employee unions love it. The true-believer, bluejersey-type folks love it. And every single one of them votes. 'Course, they're voting on how much of someone else’s income and property they will appropriate for themselves.

And THAT constitutes the real corruption: the assertion that the distribution of one’s income and property is a proper subject for a majority vote.

The problem with the GOP message – that what you earn or own belongs to you – is that it runs squarely up against the greedy hand of those who personally profit at taxpayer expense, an ever increasing number of voters. Democrats’ redistributionist policies (the politics of envy and covetousness) please the folks feeding on the public pap; those who receive other people’s money and those hired to administer the redistribution programs.

Simply put, it’s not the corruption of the occasional petty thief which causes our problems, but that of the electorate at large. What real difference exists between an elected official enriching himself at public expense, and the electorate, which votes to employ the tax system for the same purpose? In each case, people take things which they have not earned and which do not belong to them. The former case costs us a measly few hundred K; maybe a few mil; the latter costs us trillions.

Nope. The fault in our system lies not with an occasional, corrupt legislator – there will be criminals in every profession – but with a corrupt electorate. All too many folks – here in NJ primarily urban residents and public employee unions, but, nationally, including folks like farmers – see politics as a way to enrich themselves at the expense of other people. We’re outraged when public officials personally profit by virtue of their position of power, but blithely accept the infinitely greater threat of the electorate doing precisely the same thing.

Legislators – and the electorate – labor under a common obligation: thou shalt not employ thine power for personal gain. The solution to the first problem is obvious: jail. The solution to the second is just as patent: preclude ANY programs which enable a legislator to buy votes at common expense. No pork projects. No transfer payments. No subsidies. No sweetheart deals for public employees. (This last best achieved by precluding participation, personal or financial, by public employees in partisan politics: they suffer from an irreconcilable conflict of interest. The temptation to place their own interests ahead of those of the people they purport to serve is simply too obvious to ignore.) Indeed, the best possible solution would be to prevent anyone who receives a nickel from the taxpayers from voting – including elected officials. Unable to buy votes with other people’s money, legislators might concentrate on actually crafting good policy.

A small, efficient government, which does a few, unsexy, necessary things, and does them inexpensively, constitutes the best hope for a society free of corruption, one which respects the rights and freedom of all, and which does not create incentives, on the part of the electorate or the elected, to vote themselves other people’s money.