The Real Source of Government Corruption

We’re finally seeing all kinds of corruption being dragged into court. James Comey is the first of the higher-level officials recently pursued criminally. I hope this will be the start of a long line of government crooks paying the price for their misdeeds.

The question is bound to come up in our discussions: “How did we get to this point?” Or perhaps: “What can we do to keep this from happening again?”
 
I’m going to give you an unlikely parallel. Squirrels. No, I mean it.

One of the biggest problems I have in my garden is keeping the squirrels out of my bird feeder. The technological war between us and the squirrels has gone to insane levels. But nothing we try keeps them out. Eventually, they figure a way around the security systems in place to get to the food. I ended up giving up and taking down the bird feeder.

And here’s the parallel: Even in the human world, security experts will tell you that there is no security system on the face of this planet that cannot be broken down and bypassed by a determined criminal, no matter how high a wall you put up and no matter how many safeguards you put in place. If somebody's determined to get by them, they will. Systemic answers to security simply do not work, in the end.

There's a lot of chatter going around that suggests the problems in American government that involve corruption can be solved by systemic changes. If we change the system to make it harder for people to commit crimes of corruption, the thinking goes, corruption won't happen. Put up a bit of barbed wire here; put a cone there. Hang the thing from the clothesline, perhaps, and the problems will stop.

But it's not true. Like the squirrels and the bird food, they'll always find a way. What is needed here is not a systemic change for government, but a role change for government.

British bank robber Willie Sutton was once asked why was the robbed banks. Sutton famously responded: "That's where the money is. "
 
The squirrels wouldn't bother, either, if there wasn't food to be had. By the same token, then, the reason we have so much corruption in government these days is because that's where the power and the money are.

The government that has developed over the last 80 or 90 years (mostly under liberal control) has appointed itself the guardian and master of every aspect of American life, private or public. With that kind of centralization of power, there is certain to be some attempt to influence that power in one direction or another on any given topic. No amount of operational rules is going to change that basic fact. No law is going to prevent people from making the attempt and, at whiles, succeeding.

The only way to eliminate the corruption in that process is to return the responsibility for all those questions and all those processes back to where they belong: as close to the individual as possible. Yes, I'm talking about handing power back to state and local governments and to (gasp!) the people again.

Gee, isn’t this what we used to hear from the Republican establishment years ago? President Donald Trump is giving them a refresher course on that subject now. Maybe that’s why so many in government, including Democrats and establishment Republicans, are so frantically trying to kneecap his efforts.

Think about just one of the things the federal government has taken over in our daily lives of late: medicine.

Before Lyndon B.  Johnson's “Great Society,” we never heard about millions and millions of dollars being funneled to congressional campaigns by drug companies, did we? Today, it's simply the way it's done. Then again, back in the day, we did not have government deciding what doctor you were going to see, how much you were going to pay, and whether not the government could afford to give you the medicine that you need. You made those choices yourself. I think I should also point out that the moment  the “Great Society” was passed into law was the exact point at which healthcare costs started doing their SpaceX rocket imitation. Do you suppose there’s a connection there?

Among the things that Obamacare (and Hillarycare with it) sought to do was to remove such matters from the hands of the individual altogether, and place that power in the hands of government. Which is kind of handy for those wanting to game the system for their own profit.

As an example is this case being written about in the Boston Herald:

Healthcare fraud enforcement has become a prominent focus across the country, with the US Attorney’s Office recovering more than $450 million in “fraudulently obtained funds” last fiscal year, according to a release from the Justice Department.
 
 

 This is hardly a unique situation. We saw news on the topic from the DOJ i June:

 The Justice Department today announced the results of its 2025 National Health Care Fraud Takedown, which resulted in criminal charges against 324 defendants, including 96 doctors, nurse practitioners, pharmacists, and other licensed medical professionals, in 50 federal districts and 12 State Attorneys General’s Offices across the United States, for their alleged participation in various health care fraud schemes involving over $14.6 billion in intended loss. The Takedown involved federal and state law enforcement agencies across the country and represents an unprecedented effort to combat health care fraud schemes that exploit patients and taxpayers.

Lave aside for the moment the fact that when government runs healthcare, every healthcare decision is a political decision. That’s bad enough on its own. We know from the Clinton and Obama years that making the right healthcare noises buys votes from some. But now we’re starting to see that there are personal financial reasons for some to be pushing greater involvement of government in healthcare. Literally, billions of them, and all of them green. Does anyone suppose this level of fraud isn’t affecting healthcare costs?

Corruption is always and forever directly connected to how much power the government has in its hands. That's always been the formula; it's never going to change.

I’ve pointed repeatedly to the idea that the founders gave us a Constitution that limited the power of government. Corruption is a major reason why they did so.

Changing how government works isn't the answer. What has to change is how much we demand of government.

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