What follows is a set of innovative, market-based, behavioral science-based solutions to the problem of politicians being horrible at their jobs.
The permanent ruling class gets richer and richer, we see, year by year, not just in absolute terms but relative to its constituents, while whatever is left of the formerly great American middle class — and the environment, and human health, and public schoolchildren’s grasp on basic biological reality, and everything else good and decent, basically — circles the drain.
Related: VIDEO: Hillary Demands ‘Total Control’ of Social Media Via Censorship
This election cycle is on track to become the most expensive, by far, in American history — a record that is nearly consistently broken with each passing cycle.
Via Marketplace (emphasis added):
A new report from AdImpact predicts that the 2023-24 election cycle will be the costliest of all time, with candidates expected to spend cumulatively more than $10 billion in political pitches across various platforms. For major candidates, fundraising hasn’t been an issue. The campaigns of Joe Biden and Donald Trump raised more than $24 million each during the third quarter.
Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the superb investigative outfit tracking dirty political money, OpenSecrets, estimates outside spending on campaigns is on pace to beat the 2020 figures five-fold: “Total outside spending is surprisingly high for this point in the cycle — we’re already at nearly $230 million. That’s more than twice the previous record through this point in the cycle, which was back in 2016. But it’s more than five times as much as was spent by this point in the last presidential cycle in 2020. Of course, the usual inflation caveats apply,”
All of that money doesn’t flow into candidates’ coffers for nothing; these are investments, otherwise known to the common man as “bribes.” “Campaign donation” is a euphemism; no one likes these people enough personally or believes in their governing vision so enthusiastically (most of them don’t even have any real ideological convictions beyond the hedonistic “I enjoy money and power”) to just give away billions of dollars out of generosity of spirit.
This is payment upfront for future favors rendered — which would be bad and corrupt enough on its own, except that there is absolutely no regard built into the incentive structure for what effect any of these favors will have on the electorate, which Congress creatures and presidents are allegedly there to serve.
The incentive structure for public servants is fully broken.
Nancy Pelosi didn´t become a hundred-millionaire serving her constituents faithfully; she got there in a dozen different dirty ways, including leveraging inside knowledge of pending legislation to pre-empt stock market movements (insider trading) and quid pro quo with campaign cash.
Related: Congress Quietly Passes Pay Raise for Itself
That a filthy creature such as Nancy Pelosi should be allowed to make hundreds of millions of dollars off of decades of “public service” is a slap in the face to every taxpayer. This should not be allowed to happen; there should be laws against it. If you’re doing “public service,” you should be doing actual public service.
If you’re doing a good job — measured, for example, by trends in constituents’ health and wealth — there should be financial and social prestige incentives just like any private-sector actor would have as a reward for fine performance.
If you’re doing a bad job, the penalty should be prompt firing — not even more money next cycle from special interests who, as the term indicates, have special interests unaligned with public interest.
And, if you’re doing a corrupt job, we might take a page out of Vietnam’s handbook — not a perfect country, of course, and a nominally communist one for sure, but at least one where the government makes a show of aggressively prosecuting white-collar crime.
Via TIME (emphasis added):
It’s Southeast Asia’s biggest ever fraud, amounting to $12.5 billion and embroiling some of Vietnam’s top bankers and officials. And on Thursday, a Ho Chi Minh City court reached its verdict: a death sentence for Truong My Lan, a highflying 67-year-old businesswoman who began life hawking cosmetics from a market stall in the southern city before in 1992 founding Van Thinh Phat, a sprawling company which developed luxury apartments, offices, hotels, and shopping malls.
In 2011, Lan was enlisted to shepherd the merger of the troubled Saigon Joint Commercial Bank, or SCB, with two other lenders in a plan overseen by the Vietnam Central Bank. But until her arrest in 2022, she stands accused of using SCB as her personal piggybank, embezzling billions via illegal loans to herself and confederates through thousands of shell companies at home and overseas. The verdict is the first death sentence for a private businessperson for financial crime.
The case has sent shockwaves through Vietnam’s business community and is the highest profile collar of Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong’s sweeping “Blazing Furnace” anti-corruption campaign. The full impact of Lan’s sentence—a family member told Reuters she intends to appeal—is not yet known though there are clear implications for international firms looking to Vietnam as they diversify supply chains away from China.
All that to say: Trump didn’t #DraintheSwamp last time, at least not to any satisfactory degree for my taste, but I hope he’ll be pressured this time around into making some serious inroads.
