I was delighted when I saw the caption on the most recent Washington Post editorial, “The Biden administration gets serious on fighting corruption”. Imagine my disappointment when I found that they were talking about corruption in other countries:
The White House beat a 200-day deadline it imposed on itself this summer for a study on how the United States and its allies might go after global kleptocracy — delivering a report in advance of last week’s democracy summit. Past efforts to stymie self-dealing and other forms of malign finance in this country have mostly followed headline-making scandals and come from the legislature. Think, for instance, of the post-Watergate era that ushered in the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, FISA, dramatic improvements to FOIA, and more. Yet the salvos have proved inadequate to stop the flow of illicit wealth. Anyone unconvinced need only look at the leaked Pandora Papers cataloguing elected officials buying secret villas with funds hidden in secret offshore accounts, or human rights violators stashing their earnings untaxed in South Dakota trusts.
Anticorruption was a theme of Mr. Biden’s presidential campaign, and the document released by his administration is not just rhetoric but already has some teeth. The White House identified underused authorities possessed by executive agencies and directed those agencies to start using them, right away. Some have begun: The Treasury Department, for instance, has initiated a regulatory process on title insurance reporting obligations that would challenge anonymity in real estate, as well as proposed identification rules that would strip shell companies of their cover. The U.S. Agency for International Development has launched a global challenge to combat transnational corruption, as well as a defense fund for defamed international journalists.
There is a phrase that describes this: whistling past a graveyard. Foreign and transnational corruption will inevitably take a backseat to other U. S. interests. More simply, we won’t hesitate to call out corruption in countries that are our enemies but will be reluctant to point it out in countries that we need or we consider our friends.
My own view is that we need to focus intently on corruption in the United States which takes so many forms it’s hard to enumerate them all. Things that need to be curbed include:
- Influence-peddling by present or former elected officials
- Former elected officials or staff lobbying their former colleagues
- Interlocking directorates in major companies
- Public employees’ unions making political contributions
- All forms of “pay to play”
The list should be pretty long and I am sure you did not mean it to be exhaustive but I would definitely add a few other things, granting they might be difficult to enforce.
1) Friends and family may not work for companies or individuals or solicit work or accept work form those who make donations or lobby an elected official.
2) Judges may not be married to politically active spouses.
3) An elected official who leaves office may not work for or accept pay from any entity who made donations to them or lobbied them while they held office.
4) Senior military may not work for military contractors for at least 4 years after retiring.
Steve
As should be needless to say, I agree with all of those, steve. I think that many people don’t appreciate #4. General officers today can spend an entire career advocating for a particular weapons system and then go to work for the manufacturer of the weapons system, lobbying both their colleagues and the Congress at substantial wages.
Those suggestions are all fine and well. But enforcing non-competes is all but impossible unless the individual is signing after receipt of capital. The courts rule you can’t restrain someone from making a living. I’m sure the same would apply to the political arena. Not saying it’s right, but it’s the way it goes.
It would take some doing but I think it could probably be done via the tax code. IMO the greater issue is persuading Congress to do without a primary method for boosting their and other federal employees’ post-service incomes.
Which is actually the point.
I am also kind of thinking that we should be adding doing away with most NDAs to the list. David French did this story a while back on sex abuse at a major Christian camp, arguably the most famous in the country. It involved hundreds of kids and a big cover up. Even though the primary perp got 2 life sentences the story was still largely suppressed and lots of people prior to the French story, and even now, didnt know what had happened. Some of the lack of coverage was due to it now taking place in a big city, but some of it was due to the extensive NDAs making it hard to eke out the real story.
https://frenchpress.thedispatch.com/p/they-arent-who-you-think-they-are
Steve
Although I don’t disagree with that in principle, it’s hard for me to see how it could be implemented without completely impairing contracts.
“It would take some doing but I think it could probably be done via the tax code.”
Not a fan. We tax at rates based upon income type, level of income and incidence of government service utilization.
Obama may think its fine to tax based upon other factors…….like political philosophy, but I’m not. How long until “we tax you at ‘x’ because you worked in government” until we tax you at x because you worked in the “wrong” administration, are Jewish – I don’t like Jews – are a Baptist, are white, are black, are gay, are straight……….and so it goes.
I think it would be much better to deal with the non-compete issue up front. If you want to work in government, you VOLUNTARILY forego jobs where you can profit afterwards. But its a pipe dream. The Clintons sold influence. Biden and his reprobate son sold influence. They deny it, but they did. Better to have a signed piece of paper saying they won’t, and defining terms. Good luck.
Pols will squawk that that will prevent the “best and brightest” from going into government.
To laugh or to vomit. Joe and Hunter Biden. The best and the brightest.