Dakota Beacon

When we have corruption at the top of our country's establishment, we must expect it at every level.  We have Lori Laughlin bribing a college to take her kid on a "rowing" scholarship (wink, wink).  We have someone taking a bribe to murder Jeffrey Epstein (don't try to tell me he hanged himself).  We have been looking the other way at corruption in our highest offices in Washington.  No one here likes it.  But if Joe Biden's son can "earn" tens of thousands of dollars a month for "serving" on a Ukranian gas board, Michelle Obama can get a huge advance on her memoirs, the Clintons can rake in millions for "speaking engagements", it is not going to take long for this kind of thinking to permeate our entire social structure in America.   This is, in fact, what has been happening.  Understandably we want to curb this corrosive tendency.  It is rotting America at every level, and it starts at the top.  One of the most popular and most simple-minded (sorry, I guess I am honest to a fault) means of reining this in has been campaigning for "term limits".  This should be clarified.  We already do have term limits.  For a member of Congress it is two years.  For a Senator it is six years.  For a President it is four years.  So far only the only office for which we have set the number of terms is that of President - the President is allowed two terms and no more, as a result of backlash against the interminable "service" of Frankilin D. Roosevelt.  One might catalogue the presidents we have elected since and find that the limit we set on the number of terms for presidents has not succeeded in diminishing any dissatisfaction or corruption.  Just ask Democrats about any Republican president or Republicans about any Democrat president.

Yesterday I linked an article which urged people not to pursue term limits because they tend to render congressmen immune to pressure from constituents.  I agree.  I submitted it and got some feedback.  This prompted me to consider more ways in which we could try to make Congress responsive to the people it is supposed to serve.  Obviously we have not succeeded very well so far.  But term limits, meaning number of term limits, would seem to be the least effective means we could possibly devise.

After sending my article about the error in term limits I was happy to receive some feedback from a reader.  His comment was: “Maybe term limits aren’t the answer so let stop them from getting rich no pension.”

I gave this some thought.  It seems that this is the wrong way to look at a problem we have come to feel is a major issue - corruption in Congress.  It has never been that members of Congress are “too rich”. It has been that they are corrupt. I think a better approach is powerful incentives for good behavior.  That would not involve keeping them from “getting rich”. Let’s be honest here. We all want to be rich. We should want to be rich. That is what has made us and our country a success, right?  So why punish this drive in our elected representatives?

Here is another approach - one which I think comes closer to solving this problem.  We give elected members of Congress and the Senate a huge annual benefit - say, $3 million, tax-free.  This enormously generous benefit, in addition to the regular benefits like health care, the keys to the executive washrooms and use of the pool, would be contingent upon a few things.  Also provide a generous pension when the member retires or is retired by the voters.

1. Absolutely NO other sources of income (no other annuities, no real estate, no selling of any property or renting, no incomes from restaurants, sports teams, hotels, casinos, “consulting fees” or anything which produces a single dollar or in-kind benefit whatsoever from any other source.  

2. No member of the immediate family - spouse, children, siblings, parents, cousins, uncles, aunts or grandparents, may hold any kind of government job or participate in any kind of non-profit or charity.  No lobbying. (No Paul Ryan stuff.) No “compliance officer” service. EVER.  They should be prohibited from any position which involves interfacing with government.

3. The elected person also may not serve on any boards, participate in any kind of non-profit, government, charity, “pro-bono” kind of enterprise.  No “foundations”. No “libraries”. Neither a job or a position on the board of ANY private enterprise. (No Haliburton, no Clinton Foundation.)

4. No speaking fees for the member or anyone in his family for any reason, any place, ever.

5. No family member involved with any foreign company or government of any kind during the entirety of the member’s service.

6. No book deals.  If a book deal is negotiated during service or within 2 years following departure from office, or a year prior to assuming office, as Obama did, all tax-generated funds (the $3 million/year) will be paid back to taxpayers, due and payable immediately.  If someone in office takes $1 for any reason whatsoever, the $3 million is cut off. No book advance either. Royalties on earlier writing should not be affected. We don’t want to rob them.

7. No travel, dining, entertainment or any other kinds of expense accounts.  Everything comes out of the already generous benefit. If you want to vacation in the Greek Isles, invite Beyonce to entertain your dinner guests, whatever, you pay for it.

8. No buying or selling of stocks.  All stocks should be sold upon taking office.  This would help to prevent publicly funded bail-outs for private gain.  No ownership of any kind of stock should be allowed to any elected federal office holder.

9. All of the above should apply to members of the House, the Senate and to the President and Vice President.

10. Any violation of any of these provisions would result in immediate return with interest of all of the monetary benefits paid out.  

Maybe you can think of some more means of insurance against corruption.  What is literally guaranteed not to work is trying to subjugate them, humiliate them, drive them to other, very easily found, corrupt sources of income.  The bottom line is always going to be personal benefit. If a congressman weighs losing a guaranteed $3 million per year plus other standard benefits as stated above (perhaps a housing voucher so they don’t have an excuse to buy another home) he won’t risk losing it.  Maybe $3 million is not enough. We could compute the right balance amount.

All of the above would be cheap compared to the corruption we are paying for every day.  It is better that we do this than pass term limits. The term limits disincentivise good behavior.  The rewards system incentivises the best possible, spotlessly clean and transparent behavior. The point is not to punish people who serve us in Washington - it is to keep them honest and make the job worth seeking by the best among us.  If we keep the pay and benefits low, as we do now, we will have losers running for office - honest and successful people will not be motivated to run. Once in office they will feel entirely justified in going on the take. They will understand that it is expected and customary.  That’s what elected officials do. They accept large fees for “speaking”, they “write books”, they serve on boards, etc. If we tell them at the get-go, “You have only a few years here to capitalize on your position - make them count,” what should we expect them to do? Go about selflessly serving a back-home constituency and then when it’s all over for him, just quietly go back and till his field, stock shelves, manage apartment buildings?  How delusional shall we be, tea party folks? And whose interests are really served by punishing someone for making money? It sounds like Marx to me.  

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