Absolute power and Absolute Corruption....

Yesterday, I posted a link to this story on my facebook profile. It led to a fairly heated discussion between some friends about liberals vs. conservative ideals. I have never been one to shy away from discussions on political and spiritual matters. I didn't participate in this one primarily because it went on while I wasn't on the computer.

Anyway, the withdrawal of the nomination of two of President Obama's cabinet appointees in the same day for the same reason is pretty interesting. In my naivety, I somewhat expect those who are responsible for the spending of our tax dollars to be extremely cautious about their own tax bill.

I had a class in college where we talked about lawmakers and their motivations for the laws they make. The idea presented by the professor was that lawmakers are typically selfish in the laws that they make. The example given was the IRS code that allows a person to deduct mortgage interest on two homes, not just one. I realize that there are many non-lawmakers that have two homes, but who is more likely to have two homes than a member of Congress (one in their home state, one near Washington DC)

I try my best to not be cynical, and to believe that lawmakers seek higher office for the good of the country, but situations like the one with Tom Daschle, makes it obvious that our lawmakers really have nothing in common with the regular citizen. There may be some that can relate to a $100,000 'oversight', but for me and most people I know, 'oversights' fall in the $5 to $10 range. When you consider that part of the oversight was the failure to report free limousine service as income, it's pretty clear that these folks have nothing in common with blue collar folks that work everyday and typically have too much month at the end of the money.

One of the comments on this story on facebook said "this is not a liberal or conservative problem, this is a political problem" I tend to agree. Our political system is broken, but the ones who could most readily fix it are part of the problem.