A couple of days ago the Fox News web site published an Associated Press story about corruption in military contracts. When Donald Rumsfeld was appointed they Secretary of Defense, his task was to reform the military. One of those reforms was to make the army more efficient by using independent contractors to provide support services. The idea was that this would allow the members of the army to concentrate on fighting. This was supposed to reduce the overall cost of the army and allow for more fighting units. But just like any government bureaucracy with a large pile of cash to hand out, the vultures began to circle, bribes and corruption began to take hold and the price for these services sky rocketed.

The Democrats have vowed to investigate these charges. If they look hard enough, they will most likely find Congressmen and Presidential staff involved in helping their friends to generous contracts at our expense. Because of this I don't expect that any investigation will go beyond catching the small frys. That is unless the investigation turns up a prominent Republican. That would not be hard to imagine since Republicans tend to be more chummy with defense companies. I would also not be surprised to find that some of these companies are owned by generous campaign donors to both parties. There is no way to eliminate government corruption. It is as old as government itself. That is one reason why Thomas Jefferson stated that, "The government is best which governs least." The fewer hooks the government has in our daily lives, the less opportunity for government corruption.

But I believe there are things that we can do to reduce corruption at the Congressional level. We need to reduce the temptation for corruption. First is to eliminate the influence of lobbyist, corporations, and special interest groups by promoting public financed campaigns. Second we need to enforce and strengthen gift laws for Congress. Finally the one thing that will really stick in the craw of most people is a big raise for Congress, the President, and the President's cabinet. I know that most people think that Congress doesn't deserve the pay that they get now. But you get what you pay for. The average salary for a lawyer is around $92,000 and a top lawyer can make millions. The average salary of the CEO of a large corporation is in the millions. The average salary of a CFO is somewhere between $110,000 and $250,000. The average salary of a CIO is around $130,000. The average salary of a stock broker is around $170,000 and can go into the millions. The average salary of a US Congress member is around $165,000 and you have to spend millions of dollars every 2 to 4 years in order to reapply for your job.

I think that if you want to attract the best and the brightest to run our country, then we need to pay more money and try to eliminate the cronyism that exists in the political parties today.

- Thomas Paine 2

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