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Underwhelming Swamp Draining Plans
Senator Ben Sasse (R–Corn) came out today with a column in USA Today where he outlines his new plan to Drain the Swamp. He starts off his article with a bipartisan attack on the DC swamp culture and he’s just barely scratching the surface. He points out a few examples from each party of corrupt behavior. (To be fair, a full accounting would take several books.) Then he lays out the bills he’s planning to introduce to fix DC’s ethical problems. I’m normally a fan of the Senator, but after reading the article my first thought was “That’s it? That’s all you’ve got?”
Let’s break down the plan. He splits the descriptions into two groups: Three bills that “drain the swamp once-and-for-all” and two that “stop feeding the swamp creatures.”
We’re going to prohibit Cabinet members and their immediate family from soliciting donations from foreign sources.
OK, that sounds good. But why just Cabinet members and their family? Shouldn’t this apply to all government officials?
We’re going to require that presidential and vice-presidential candidates’ tax returns are disclosed.
This one seems just like a thinly disguised attack on President Trump. I’ve never thought that candidates releasing their returns needed to be something required. The fact that a candidate wouldn’t release them voluntarily says something itself. In any case, requiring release of tax returns seems pretty insignificant overall.
We’re going to create a public database of congressional HR settlements, make disclosure quicker, and increase personal financial liability for members of congress.
Another good idea, and one that has been suggested before in light of the #metoo movement. I’m wondering if the other bills that would have increased transparency in this area all died quiet deaths after the initial round of scandals? In any case, this is one I would fully support.
We’re going to prevent members of Congress from abusing their access to information and influence, by prohibiting them from buying or selling stocks during their time in office.
Again, this seems like a good idea if kind of a minor thing. Are we really seeing a bunch of congressmen blindly legislating based on their stock portfolio? And won’t they just have a family member do the buying and selling instead?
Finally, we’re going to put a stopper in D.C.’s infamous Revolving Door with a lifetime ban on members of Congress making money lobbying.
This is the big one based on the reaction I’ve seen so far. But is it really the biggest problem in the swamp? I’m not saying it’s a bad idea, although a lifetime ban seems a bit extreme. I just don’t know what good this does beyond shutting the revolving door between Congress and K Street.
No one disputes that DC is a swamp, but this seems like an effort to drain it using drinking straws. (California now objects to the plan unless paper straws are used.) If we really want to drain the swamp, we need to remove what causes the problem: money flows to power.
The swamp isn’t just Congress and it isn’t just the President. The biggest part of the swamp is the federal bureaucracy. Draining the swamp means cutting the funding for agencies and preventing them from just using the federal budget to pass on taxpayer money to their cronies. It means returning power to the states and removing the incentive for people to pour money into Washington. It means ending policies like civil asset forfeiture and massive filing fees for getting bureaucrats to do their jobs.
America should have the least corrupt government in the world. We don’t. That’s what we need to be addressing, and we shouldn’t settle for cosmetic changes. If this is the best that Sen. Sasse has to offer (or the best he thinks can get through Congress), that’s one more reminder that we can’t expect the swamp to drain itself.
Published in Politics
I personally wish Trump would resign and allow Pence to become president because I think Pence would do a better job of communicating the superiority of the Republican agenda (or lack of one) over the Democrat agenda.
Trump has a great story to tell. But he doesn’t tell it consistently enough. The media certainly isn’t going to help Trump get his message out.
That was supposed to be taken care of several years ago with the STOCK Act. I wonder why that didn’t solve the problem? Could it be that it was all just for show, and that nothing actually changed? (Or that Harry Reid’s amendment that came one year after its passage simply moved all the insider trading out of the public eye?)
Why should we assume a new law will make any difference?
He’s a symptom of a sick system. No one is going to do anything about it.
I thought Sasse’s last appearance here was laughable. Trade and robots are going to wipe out these (colloquialism) jobs so people can buy stuff for less, but the Fed has to run with 2% inflation and the price of shelter is going through the moon. Then throw in education inflation.
I’d rather have Trump start a trade war.
Huh?
Not a minor thing. Congress members are immune to insider trading charges. That has to stop. What really needs to stop is Congress passing laws that they exempt themselves from.
Didn’t a Republican Congressman from New York just recently get indicted for insider trading?
The real swamp that needs to be drained isn’t in Washington DC, it’s all across the country.
Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and Federal Employee retirement represent the swamp, the entitlement crisis, that poses a huge threat to the vitality of the United States.
Yet your average voter, whether they are Republican or Democrat, pro-life or pro-abortion, pro-gun or anti-gun, pro-same sex marriage or pro-traditional marriage, doesn’t want entitlement reform to happen. Instead your average voter wants to talk about Congressional pensions, Congressional pay, lobbyists and “the swamp.”
In other words, the whole “drain the swamp” rhetoric is a way of pretending that our nation’s problems can be solved by getting rid of lobbyists.
They need to get realistic and creative, both politically and practically, about slowing down socialism.
I really think there are a bunch of more or less powerful GOP that this is extremely bad for their egos or their lifestyles.
The ACA could have been wiped out and replaced with a better multiplayer system. This didn’t happen for actual reasons.
Collins? Yeah. He involved other people. I’m not sure of the parameters. A Congressman get more leeway than you or I would.
Two terms for the Senate, six terms for the House. 12 years max in DC.
I know that people argue that a term-limited Congress will just make the bureaucracy and lobbyists more powerful since they’ll have more institutional knowledge, but I’m not buying that. Congress still has the actual power to make the laws. If we’re stupid enough that we elect people who are just puppets for the bureaucrats then we deserve what we get.
Listen to Jay Cost on Jonah Goldberg.
Good Grief! Those proposals barely only scrape the scum off a small section of the swamp.
I want it drained, or at least lowered significantly. This means total elimination of some agencies. Things like eliminating the department of education, simplifying the tax code so the IRS can be substantially reduced come to mind. Also, push the social programs back to the States.
Finally, push the law making responsibility back to the legislators. Agencies under the Executive Branch should not be writing laws.
I’ll have to go back and listen to that one again. Once I’m caught up that is. I still have about 8 or so hours of current podcasts in my queue.
Jay Cost is the smartest low-profile type out there. I think he’s a PhD from Chicago. His interview by Jonah Goldberg I thought was very realistic about the realities of having so much centralized government. Republicans need to listen to him or go full Mises.org.
Who is going to do anything about this?
We worry about all this stuff, but no one is going to do anything. No one in the GOP will do anything about the socialist momentum.
I’d like a law that any request to a government agency for a permit or administrative decision where the decision is *not* made within a reasonable period of time (90 days?) is presumed to be resolved in favor of the one making the request.
They’re different problems. Bankrupt is one thing. Enslaved is another.
Cutting corporate welfare would do a lot to poke holes in the dam that holds the swampwater in place. It sure is hard to get people interested in taking it on, though.
I mean this as a completely serious question.
Can any of you explain to me what the value added it is from a progressive taxation system with deductions versus a flat tax? All they do his point a gun at our heads and auction off rates and ductions in the name of central planning. There is no value added. It’s all guess work and K Street donations.
The mortgage interest deduction, all it does is jack up the price of shelter by at least 15%. In a world where Ben Sasses says you have to suck it up when you lose wages and jobs form robots and cheap globalized labor.
Just get rid of the phony central planning by K Street = instant improved governance.
What do you mean by corporate welfare? Examples?
First and foremost are ag subsidies. The left pretends to be against them, too. We should call their bluff. Because it’s a backscratching arrangement where Repubs support welfare for the poor in exchange for Democrat support for welfare for the rich. We don’t need the welfare for the rich, and the welfare for the poor will never get any needed reforms as long as the corporate welfare is in place.
Not first and not foremost is the ExIm bank. Trump was actually trying to do something about that one, but didn’t get much help from his base.
There have also been many energy welfare programs, such as Solyndra, windmill subsidies, corn ethanol, and others.
There are others, but those are a target-rich environment.
Based on your examples, I agree with your comments. Thanks.
I think the tax return idea is kind of silly. I’d rather see a requirement that candidates release their educational transcripts. Whenever I have applied for a job, I have always been asked about grades; I have never been asked to show my tax returns. Besides, I’m still curious about just how awful Obama’s grades were in college and law school. Or maybe better yet, require candidates to release their birth certificates. Unlike the others, that requirement would actually be relevant to the Constitutional requirements for the office.
Grades are not the be-all end-all. Sometimes it is more important to have a friend that can donate $20M to Harvard.