Dr. Forbush Thinks

The definitions of corrupt, at least those pertaining to politics are:
1) Marked by immorality and perversion; depraved.
2) Venal; dishonest: a corrupt mayor.

When we think of corruption in government we think about foreign governments where government officials may use extortion to add to their meager salaries. This happens because it was understood that the government had power to not only govern the people, but also to supplement their person wealth with their political power. The people in these countries react in much the same way that people react to powerful companies in this country. The people say that these people earned their power and therefore they deserve the perks of that power. Because of this attitude toward corruption and the power the corrupt officials hold there isn’t much chance of things changing.

But, the fact is that corruption actually hurts the economy of these countries. The corruption is an unofficial tax on the economy and this tax does not go toward building infrastructure in the country. Instead this tax goes to building the personal wealth of government bureaucrats.

In order to understand how corruption works I’ll tell a story of actual corruption that happened 15 years ago in Mexico. A friend of mine was building a scientific institute in Mexico. Any good scientific institute at the time needed high end computers in order to design engineering projects and to model scientific theories. These computers were quite expensive and my friend wanted to use the grant money that he had obtained to purchase the maximum amount of computing power. He bought a number of DEC computers and equipment and had it shipped to his laboratory in Mexico. Being an expensive order he kept tabs on its progress, when it was shipped and when it was to arrive. He was aware of the official duty that needed to be paid to the Mexican customs agents, but he became very upset when the customs officials wanted him to “grease the palm” of the official in charge of his case. Well, my friend knew about the corruption in Mexico, because he grew up there, but he was upset that this pay-off would dig deep into his grant and his program would suffer. So, he called his representative and asked him to help him get the computers out of the customs warehouse. Of course this official also wanted to be paid to help him “lower” the customs fee. My friend was persistent and he called more officials and it took him six months to get the computers out of the warehouse, but he smiled when he told me that he didn’t pay one bribe.

This story illustrates the power that corrupt officials can hold over the operations of government and the problems that corruption can effect on the economy as well as the programs the government supports.

So, aren’t we glad to live in the corruption free United States of America?

Well, just how corruption free is the United States of America?

I believe that America has corruption in a different form than Mexico, but we still have corruption. Instead of corrupt officials taking incentive money we have politicians taking campaign contributions and passing laws to benefit the contributors. Of course these actions are all done in the guise of deniability, but Joe Barton’s Energy Bill is a good example of this corruption in progress. This Energy Bill has done everything to help the energy industry and very little to help alleviate our dependence on foreign oil.

As Jerry Taylor, a spokesman for the libertarian Cato Institute said, "The bill is larded with subsidies, tax preferences and miscellaneous handouts to an energy industry that - with prices this high - are in no need of taxpayer assistance." In other words, the bill is the payoff for all the bribes, I mean, campaign contributions that the energy companies have been paying for the last five years. Instead of clearing up the regulations the tax payers are paying companies with tax breaks for doing what they would do anyway. And, these companies don’t even need to help. These companies are doing just fine without all these tax breaks.

It is quite funny that Republicans who control the House of Representatives, Senate and the Presidency came up with a welfare bill for big energy. What happened to the idea that companies should earn their money by doing hard work? Or, is that people need to do hard work, but companies shouldn’t be treated this way. Instead companies should be treated as privileged upper class and get tax breaks.

You might be tempted to think that a welfare bill like this would also have benefits for the country as well. You would be wrong there. Since the poor energy companies that are getting the government handouts for their campaign contributions could be harmed in there were any environmental challenges those were left to be minimal. Perhaps the best part of this energy bill is the incentive to build nuclear power plants. With all the new technology available today much safer nuclear plants could be build. Unfortunately the builders will not be required to use any new technology. We just hope that they will use their own best judgement and find that the safer option is also the best option. We’ll just have to wait and see.

From what I see, it looks like American corruption isn’t much different than Mexican corruption in the long run, except whom gets the money.




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