Mar 25, 2006 By Guest Commentary Robert E. Workman 3 min read

Two thousand, four hundred years ago, Plato said: “The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.” Let’s avoid an endless discussion of the definition of the word evil and use a moderate explanation of considering it as not being high in public esteem, or being nefarious in nature. This pretty well sums up the overall performance of our elected officials in Washington, D.C. They all appear to have a permanent commitment to a failing strategy, a.k.a., corruption and indifference. The most widely accepted definition of political corruption is the abuse of public position for private benefit of individuals or the group to whom one owes allegiance. Most easily recognizable are bribery, patronage, nepotism, tax evasion, theft of state assets, electoral fraud, diversion of revenues – and let’s not forget sexual favors. We do not have to think either long or hard to identify recent politicians guilty of these deeds.

Political factors present that are good indicators of a system in trouble are weakening of civil liberties (Patriot Act), lack of transparency and accountability (classified/privileged information about major policy decision-making processes), and a state in the process of being captured and ruled by “elitists.” We receive, on a fairly regular basis, entirely too much discursive rhetoric and not nearly enough reality in all of the above areas.

Our Congressional representatives have established a separate and different world for themselves. Private retirement and medical plans, pay increases in excess of the cost of living and inflation rates, etc. The last time I had an occasion to check the individual official postage bills for several of them, most were in excess of $100,000 each year. Paid for by the taxpayers. When I wrote Connie Mack and requested an explanation (his was the largest one), he wrote a reply to me and blamed the larger-than-life bill on the inefficiencies of the U.S. postal system. How is that for passing the buck?

So who is running the government, you ask? An excellent question. On Jan. 19, CNN reported that there are, “More than 37,000 registered lobbyists in D.C.” The Senate office of public records (SOPR), the agency responsible for receiving lobbyists registrations and publishing them online, reports 32,308 registered lobbyists as of Sept. 30, 2005.

This has the appearance of being a little lopsided to me. Over 30,000 lobbyists for a mere 100 senators, 400 members of the House of Representatives and, of course, the White House staff and residents.

The sole job of each lobbyist is to advance the financial interests of the firms they represent, nothing more. Not one of them works for the benefit of the individuals living and paying taxes in this country. Quite the opposite. They are running this country via political contributions. It appears as though we have the best government money can buy.

As long as we have no term limits and our elected officials continue to set re-election as a “long-term goal,” we have no chance to survive as a desirable place to live and raise families. Americans have enjoyed an above-average standard of living so long that a downward spiral will be hard, if not impossible, to digest. Never forget for one moment, our national debt is currently growing at the rate of $18,291 each and every second.

Robert E. Workman resides in Connellsville.