[Vision2020] Corruption Needs No DeLay (Molly Ivins)

[Tom Hansen]

>From today's (June 22, 2006) Spokesman Review -

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Corruption needs no DeLay 
Molly Ivins 
June 22, 2006

Gee, the Republicans seem to have lost their moral compass since Tom DeLay
quit. Who knew it could get worse without that pillar of rectitude from
Texas? What a snakes' nest of corruption and nastiness. 

The latest involves Speaker Denny Hastert and a land deal.

Hastert had sold to a developer a 69-acre portion of a 195-acre farm that
had been purchased in his wife's name. The developer also purchased an
adjacent plot of roughly equal size owned in trust by Hastert and two of his
"longtime supporters." The area west of Chicago is growing madly, and
Hastert - through an earmark appropriation process - dedicated $207 million
in taxpayer dollars as the first appropriation on the Prairie Parkway, which
will run 5.5 miles from the Hastert land. Went through in fall 2005. Three
months later, Hastert and his partners sold the land for a $3 million total
profit, $1.8 million to Hastert. 
 
In a staggering display of brass-faced gall, Hastert is now claiming a
freeway running 5.5 miles from his land is not close enough to affect the
price of the farm. Then what did the developer pay the extra $3 million for?
Hastert is said to be furious with the Sunlight Foundation, which broke the
story, and the Chicago newspapers, which pounced on it gleefully. This is
what I don't get about Republicans. Apparently, they think they are
genuinely entitled to get these special deals.

Also making news is California Rep. Jerry Lewis, who is in deep with a
lobbying firm that is El Stinko. This wouldn't matter so much if Lewis were
just another congressman, but he is chairman of the House Appropriations
Committee, the one that hands out the money. Lewis' family and friends have
profited nicely from contractors and lobbyists who court his favor. Such
cozy arrangements. 

Just for example, one Lewis aide, who had gone to work for the lobbying firm
and then returned to the congressman's staff, was paid $2 million by the
firm in 2004 while on the public payroll. 

With a fine sense of ethical behavior, members of the House have voted to
continue earmarking, including $500,000 for a swimming pool in Lewis'
district (bringing the total federal money allotted for this pool to $1
million). 

Meanwhile, back on the Jack Abramoff-and-related fronts, a letter had been
found, despite initial denials by the Department of Homeland Security, from
the now-convicted ex-Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham recommending that the
government use the limo firm that allegedly ferried whores to the poker
parties given by defense contractors who were paying off Cunningham. 

Don't Democrats have scandals, too? Yes, Rep. William Jefferson of Louisiana
is in deep doo-doo. Among other things, the Fibbies found $90,000 in cash in
his freezer. So the Democratic caucus kicked him off his important seat on
the Ways and Means Committee. Republicans just keep on trucking. 

Meanwhile, the entire Department of Homeland Security is beginning to look
like a Republican playground. According to the New York Times, more than 90
former officials at DHS or the White House Office of Homeland Security are
now "executives, consultants or lobbyists for companies that collectively do
billions of dollars worth of domestic security business." 

Can Republicans run anything right? Where is the CEO administration that was
supposed to straighten out government? It may be that Bush deserves credit
for having initially opposed a DHS, knowing that Republicans would make a
giant new federal agency. But he later changed his mind and supported the
thing. The rest of us thought we were getting an agency that would provide
homeland security, but what an endless saga of misspent money, stupid
decisions, waste, fraud, abuse and political logrolling - and still no port
protection. 

It seems to me there is a direct connection between the Republicans'
inability to run anything governmental ("Heckuva job, Brownie") and the fact
that they don't believe in government. The simplest purposes of government
have long been defined for us - to form a more perfect union, establish
justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense,
promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to
ourselves and our posterity. It is, or should be, a benign enterprise,
making life better for citizens. 

I carry no special brief for government - many years of studying the Texas
Legislature will disenchant anyone. But if you are put in charge of
government, the least you can do is run it well. Bill Clinton took
government seriously - he was interested in how to make it work better,
interested in government policy. Clinton declared the era of Big Government
over and indeed pruned the federal structure and finished with a surplus.
Bush is giving us fat, bloated, inefficient, corrupt government, all of it
running on a huge deficit - not counting the expense and growing body count
in Iraq. 

As the man said - "2,500 is just a number."

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Seya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho


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"If the law is to be respected it must first be respectable.  There will
never be respect for our laws without enforcement, equal enforcement."

- dick Sherwin (May 3, 2006)

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