When former New Hampshire senator Judd Gregg was being considered for Commerce secretary in early 2009, his investments came under scrutiny. Among other things, Gregg had earmarked $66 million in federal funds to transform a decommissioned Air Force base in his home state into a business park.
The project was being spearheaded by Gregg’s brother Cyrus, and the senator had invested $450,000 to $1 million of his own money. Since the taxpayer-financed redevelopment, Judd Gregg has earned somewhere between $240,000 and $650,000. Yet when asked about his earmarks, Gregg replied, “I am absolutely sure that in every way I’ve complied with the ethics rules of the Senate both literally and in their spirit relative to any investment I’ve made anywhere.”
Gregg’s statement is true—and that’s a problem. In terms of earmark abuse, Senator Gregg was far from the worst member of Congress. But Senate ethics rules are toothless and easily skirted. George Washington Plunkitt of Tammany Hall once put it this way: “There is so much honest graft in this big town that they would be fools to go in for dishonest graft.” (As the Charlie Rangel and Maxine Waters ethics investigations indicate, we still elect our share of fools.)
The anecdote about Gregg and the Plunkitt quote above are both included in Peter Schweizer’s Throw Them All Out. The book has received a massive publicity push—including a much-discussed 60 Minutes segment—and for good reason. Though many people may think it’s impossible to be any more cynical about Washington, D.C., -Schweizer’s well-documented litany of political corruption is likely to discover wells of indignation heretofore untapped.
Entire article:Cleaning Up Congress | The Weekly Standard
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