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Thursday, June 22, 2006Wandering around blogworld today, I noticed an Instapundit post on what I'm calling the "Is Hastert a crook or does he just not give a damn about the Republicans being swept into the Politics-as-Usual biz with him as the lead posterboy" mess. Then there's the earlier bit about how our nation's conscious on the Iraq war and warmongering, Jack Murtha, was passing out taxpayer funded loot to those near and dear. Toss in Jefferson, toss in Lott, toss in the half dozen other scandals and mini-scandals out there, then ask yourself: If you were in a position to give seemingly free money to friends, family and those who had done you a good turn, might you?I don't know that your average Congressman is more corruptible than the typical salt of the earth fast food worker. In my experience with fast food and restaurants, I've known more than two or three people who thought "accidentally" making too many fries and giving a free order to friends was no big deal, for example, without wondering if that was one of the cost factors that kept everyone's salary budget a little tighter and grandma's dividend to pay for retirement a little smaller. I worked with a perfectly nice, fine Christian young man who was let go when a couple hundred dollars a month started disappearing from the till. His circumstances were rough and he had plainly convinced himself the owner was good for it so no big deal. We all tell ourselves little lies when we see a chance to help ourselves or, more nobly, help people we think well of, without considering where the cost is actually borne. Don't bother writing to tell me otherwise - if your vice isn't money, you've surely found nobility in a friend's white lie and outrage in a rival's equally mindless falsehood or written off grandma's tic as part of her charm but someone else's similar behavior as evidence of uncouthness. Bottom line, we all have a way of seeing our actions and causes as noble and those of others as indefensible. But not all of us have access to billions of dollars with which to play out these little psychodramas full scale. Earmarks are like communism. Within there may be noble sounding theories about using the power of government to maximize the common good, but once people are introduced into the equation it all goes to hell. Not because earmarks in the abstract are bad but because in reality they are a prime opportunity for the wicked to profit and the well-meaning to be dragged into the muck by those who would take advantage of their good nature. It's cliché to note that if men were angels we'd have no need of government, but it applies all the way to an understanding that a certain set of rules, regulations, precepts and mores must be in place to govern those who govern. When our Constitution expressly limited the powers of government, it wasn't just a protection for the people. It was a protection for those who govern from the temptations of power that lead to the fall of kings and the rise of the Cromwells, the Robespierres, the Lenins and the Castros. When governments fall - be they the monarchies of the Bourbons, the democracies of 1848 or the communist oligarchies of the 1990s - governments that fall cannot usually be said properly to have been overthrown. Rather, they collapse under their own weight and their overthrowers are those who in the pell mell manage first to strike a convincing pose upon the carcass. In 1994, the Democratic Congress was bloated to the point of immobility. Like any improbable organism, its first governing impulse was to survive, its second to grow. It reached its limit and a hearty band of warriors with a few good ideas danced around the corpse, waving their spears and promising they had wiped out the beast that threatened the tribe. Twelve years on, the Republican caucus seems to have morphed into a smaller version of the earlier monster. This is expressed less in the transgressions of Republicans than in their eagerness to protect William Jefferson's Capitol Hill offices as part of a Sanctum Sanctorum as immune from outside oversight as the priest's confessional. So, what to do? If the Republicans are smart, now is the time - before it sticks too firmly into people's memories with November's approach - now is the time to start coming clean about earmarks. I'm not saying that Hastert should go on Meet the Press and tearfully confess that he rerouted a highway to make a cool $2M. But he should admit that amidst the pressures of governance and of Washington life in general, it is too easy to do a really good turn by somebody for what feels to you like the best of reasons for the best of folks when your judgment about the overall picture is skewed by your focus on particular people and places. Now is the time for smart Republicans to take on earmarks. Not because they're corrupting. Not because those who make them are bad. But because the earmark system places upon well-meaning legislators a burden of power that men of ordinary means ought not be asked to bear. Because they provide a route to unearned monies through the good faith, goodwill and good names of elected officials, incentivizing the corruption of otherwise well-meaning public servants. Because they expand the patronage system in such a way that it may come to seem natural, normal and even expected to find jobs for friends and relatives in need of a boost. Because, to put it short and sweet, they have the power to lead a basically good and well meaning wrestling coach/citizen legislator into situations where he's over his head, out of his league and the stakes are too high for it not to be worth it to those around him to destroy him if need be in the process of getting at the monies over which he's found himself custodian. We don't let police officers decide who gets the death penalty - and investigate like hell if in the line of duty their actions have that practical consequence. We don't let teachers decide how schools will be funded - as hard as the NEA has tried. We don't let bosses decide for themselves whether they were well-meaning or had sexually harrassed an employee. Not just in government, but throughout our society, we have checks and balances that not only protect the meek from the depredations of power but, by their earlier correctives, prevent those with power from succumbing to its temptations. Recognizing that men are not angels, we not only protect the weak from the strong, but the strong from themselves. The earmarking system's damage to the weak or unempowered is generalized - everyone's tax dollars are frittered away. And perhaps we've let that go too long - as with many of Washington's other abuses - since the pain is generalized for the unempowered and offers a morality play when it engulfs the powerful. But we would do better, and would better honor the exquisite construction of our Constitution and the theory behind our institutions of governance - if we supported those who want to tighten the Commerce Clause, scrap the earmarking, and restrict the role government plays in picking winners and losers. It is time we stripped the burdens of power from the powerful for their own sakes as much as ours. With less money and less power up for grabs, the citizen legislator would stand a better chance of staying an ordinary citizen, and we, the people, would stand a better chance of not getting screwed by people who think manipulating our institutions is easier than doing real work if you want to get rich. To start yet another paragraph thus, if the Republicans are smart, they will see the damage they are doing to themselves, confess that they're no better about staying out of the game than anyone else and then take serious action to shut down the earmark racket. Or at least, this is what they must do to maintain the loyalty of longterm quasi-party hacks like me who need a reason to keep their streaks of independence a little bit in check. A penitent Dennis Hastert who realizes how bad his statements sound and realizes that if he believes in spending our money on a project he must believe enough to let the whole country see bright and clear where the money went or shut up about it - that is a Dennis Hastert I could support, and a leader whose party I would gladly support. But the Dennis Hastert who thinks the big deal is people nosing in on his institution's turf? If I vote Republican this fall, it will only be to vote against the Democrats. Others - possibly enough others to turn the Republicans out - may have already given up hope that it makes any difference. Wake up Denny Hastert! Lott is lost, but it's not too late for you. Will Hastert, Boehner and others flush the party down the toilet? Or will they join Coburn, Shadegg and the rest of the Republican Study Group types in making our Grand Old Party worth spending your ballot on again? 
posted by gbarto at 11:48 PM |
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