Have you noticed yet how so many Washington politicians and bureaucrats are ignoring the last election?
Voters tossed Republicans out of congressional power last November and gave it to Democrats promising to clean up the culture of corruption epitomized by anonymous earmarks, well-connected lobbyists and other influence peddlers.
But the truth is nothing much really has changed and isn’t likely to anytime soon, regardless of which party is in power. Many in the Washington establishment — Democrats and Republicans, elected officials and career civil servants — are determined to keep right on fleecing the American people as if the election never happened.
The Democrats have all but abandoned their campaign promises. Now they hide behind a cynical veil of excuse and delay. The Senate and House approved earmark and other ethics reforms earlier this year. Yet nobody now seems interested in working out differences between the two reform packages, so the new rules can go into effect.
Meanwhile, 2007 and 2008 spending bills are being larded up with new anonymous earmarks, with leading Democrats openly defending the practice. They are like drunks who remained sober for a dozen years, but then fell off the wagon and now it’s as if they never stopped boozing.
For their part, lots of Republicans are talking a good case, claiming to have gotten November’s message loud and clear. They’ve won some legislative victories, mainly in the Senate, thanks to the persistence of Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Jim DeMint of South Carolina, who are reinvigorating the gadfly role not seen in this town since Wisconsin Democrat Sen. William Proxmire was handing out monthly Golden Fleece awards.
But Republicans can’t justcollectively walk away from the mud in which they wallowed while most recently in power. The FBI is investigating conflict of interest and other allegations of corruption against Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz., Rep. Gary Miller, R-Calif., and Rep. John Doolittle, R-Calif.
All three have denied wrongdoing, but their cases are far from closed, regardless of the ultimate outcomes, and only tight-lipped federal prosecutors know if indictments of others are coming. It will be decades before the GOP will be allowed to forget Jack Abramoff.
Not to be left out are the career bureaucrats who run the government’s day-to-day operations. You will be happy to know your tax dollars are paying for employees of four agencies to attend the Annual Research Meeting at Walt Disney World June 3 to 5.
The hosting agencies include the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Department of Veterans Affair’s health services research and development office and the National Center for Health Statistics.
One can only wonder if they will have as much fun in Orlando as high-rolling bureaucrats from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency did not long ago in Cambridge, Md., where they reportedly dined lavishly on filet and crab, while downing dry martinis and delectable hors d ‘oeuvres.
Lest anybody think merely letting taxpayers pick up the tab for their vacation travels is the worst of abuses among the bureaucrats, developments last week gave an important new insight into how the legislative culture of corruption also pervades executive agencies.
When The Examiner’s Barbara Hollingsworth started asking questions recently about more than $20 million worth of 2005 earmarks that went to local firms, people all over town suddenly turned mute.
Remarkably, none of the company officials, congressional staffers or agency spokesmen knew anything at all aboutwhere the earmarks came from, which congressman sponsored them or who among the recipients sought out the federal largesse. It was as if the money had unexpectedly come floating down from heaven like manna.
What Barbara did find out from knowledgeable congressional sources, however, was that agencies typically get a bonus — usually about 10 percent — from Congress for administering programs involving earmarks. Since the bonus bucks come without strings, nobody in the agency is likely to blow the whistle.
And therein lies the ugly truth — most Washington officials adroitly give lip service to good government, but the reality is only a few with genuine power want to blow the whistle on dishonesty and have the political courage to see it through. As for the rest, you don’t really expect them to blow the whistle on themselves or their friends, do you?
Mark Tapscott is editorial page editor of The Washington Examiner and proprietor of Tapscott’s Copy Desk blog.
