Washington's Corruption Is Like the Ancien Régime

[Valin]

The Corner:

 

Michael Auslin

May 30, 2013

 

Lindsey, Trey Gowdy is one of the few congressmen willing to speak truth to power from an internal passion for the truth. Id add to his comments you quote that todays abuse of power in Washington was equaled only maybe by Rome. More disturbingly, Washingtons level of political corruption is on a par with ancien régime France. Like the doomed Bourbons, todays insulated, self-reproducing Washington elite lavishes itself with astronomical salaries (whether making over $100,000 as a civil servant in the White House or millions on K Street), luxurious vacations, numerous privileges (from business-class air travel to junkets abroad), and exclusive neighborhoods. In order to do so, they extract more and more money from the productive sectors of the economy, and particularly from those who cannot protect themselves through preferential tax treatment. If the elite doesnt take those gains for themselves, they redistribute them to the electoral groups that ensure their permanent hold on power.

 

Sure, an individual congressman, or two, or several dozen, can be thrown out at election time, but as a class, the electoral and bureaucratic elite retains its unassailable position and grows fatter while the rest of the country must make do with less.....(Snip)

 

 

 

Trends That Cannot Continue.....Won't.