American Kleptocracy: Government of the Thieves, by the Thieves, and for the Thieves

During my daily commute to work, I recently finished listening to a very interesting book on CD entitled Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security by Sarah Chayes. I just happened upon it while searching the county library collection to find something interesting to give me a break from the radio. As it turns out, I couldn’t have found this book at a better time.

Ordinarily, Chayes would not be someone with whom I would see eye to eye on the issues. She is an NPR reporter which places her at the polar opposite end of the political spectrum from me. However, her experiences dealing with corruption in Afghanistan and as a consultant trying to help our government develop policy to combat terrorism there and elsewhere as part of a wider global security strategy are very much in line with what I experienced and observed first hand in my overseas service.  Chayes argues that much of the rise of radical Islam is more of a consequence of the peoples’ frustration and sense of hopelessness due to having no recourse to wrongs inflicted on them by their deeply and systemically corrupt governments. Radical Islamists hold themselves and religion up to the common people as the only incorruptible option to combatting corrupt government and establishing justice, harsh though it may be. Her book details the kleptocracies in Afghanistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Uzbekistan among other places. She also discusses the circumstances leading up to the Arab Spring which began in Tunisia and spread across North Africa and unfortunately it has failed to live up to its promise for the most part. In explaining corruption, she describes its many forms and the characteristics of each. In its most egregious form, the corrupt government is so involved in fleecing their country that they have no interest in governing whatsoever.  It is not until her epilogue that Chayes moves from corruption in the developing world and begins to show how it is growing in the developed countries of the West. This is when I had my epiphany: America’s government has become a kleptocracy. Just as Chayes describes the different methods used by Third World governments to steal from the citizenry, the establishment American political class is no longer interested in good governance. It has become obsessed with enriching itself.

Both Democrat and Republican elected officials (though by different methods: Democrats through “big government” socialism and Republicans through crony capitalism) are completely consumed by the business of corruption and stealing America’s future. Obviously, there is no one-to-one correspondence between how corrupt governments in the Third World operate their kleptocracies and how our corrupt government runs its. One cannot simply connect the dots or draw a straight line through all the data points to prove the model describing our government is a kleptocracy. Our government runs a much more subtle and sophisticated crime syndicate. However, borrowing from mathematics and applying the least squares method to the data point shows that the model that best fits what our government has become is a kleptocracy. Ask yourself the following questions. Why would Republicans pass a massive $1.1 trillion budget that gives their political opponents nearly everything they want? Why would the Republicans wait until September every year to get their budget together and thereby guaranteeing a yearly crisis and threat of a government shutdown? Why do Democrats refuse to enforce existing laws, ignore the massive fraud, waste and abuse that always accompanies the bloated programs they enact, or fail to hold those politically connected accountable for crimes and abuses that would result in lengthy prison terms for ordinary citizens? Why would both Republicans and Democrats (until recently) exempt themselves and their relatives from laws against insider trading which allowed them to make millions in the stock market or accept patronage jobs from big donors for their relatives, friends or themselves following their political careers?  Taken separately, there could be several plausible explanations; taken together, there is only one conclusion – corruption and each party's method of theft allows them to benefit. I could provide specific examples of these and many more but in fairness, given my political leanings, they would all be examples of liberal Democrat abuses. I leave it to the reader to read Chayes’ book and then do their own honest inquiry and I guarantee there are plenty of examples from both sides of the aisle.

Recognizing the problem is important but finding solutions is critical if we want to save America from self-destruction. So what can be done? For starters, I suggest the following:

1. Repeal the 17^th Amendment and return the election of Senators to the State legislatures as they were prior to 1913. This would reduce the influence of donors and make Senator accountable to their States as the Constitution originally intended.

2. End baseline budgeting or the practice of automatically increasing the budget by a set amount every year.

3. Require Congress to pass separate budgets for each department of the federal government instead of lumping them all into an omnibus bill. There are only fifteen departments so there would be fifteen individual and digestible funding bills. This would make it harder to hide questionable spending and prevent disagreements over specific department or agency funding from shutting down the entire government.       

4. Set spending caps on election campaigns. This would reduce the influence money has on politicians and make them more accountable to their individual constituents. This would also put all candidates on a level playing field and heaven forbid…make them demonstrate they can budget and make wise money decisions.

5. Return powers not specifically granted to the federal government under the Constitution back to the individual States as guaranteed by the 10^th Amendment.

6. Institute a waiting period before defeated or retiring politicians can accept a position connected with a donor – similar to the restrictions on other government and military personnel that prevents them from accepting a position from a company over which they had contracting or decision making authority.

I’m sure readers have other ideas. Comment and let others know your thoughts!