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May 2006

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The Most Corrupt Congress in History?

By Don Monkerud
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May 2006
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D emocrats call the GOP “a culture of corruption.” Hilary Clinton claims that the Bush administration is running Congress like a plantation. Charges of corruption are so rampant that it’s difficult to reach any other conclusion than that this Congress is, in fact, the most corrupt in history. 

Where to begin? A shift in Washington’s culture began in 1995 with Newt Gingrich and his Contract For America. With Tom DeLay’s selection as majority whip, the GOP began the “K Street Project,” which pressured trade associations and lobbying firms to hire only Republicans and to contribute to GOP campaigns if they wanted access to Congress. 

Lobbying has grown by leaps and bounds since then. According to the Washington Post , the number of federal lobbyists has more than doubled since 2000 to 34,750. In 1996 lobbyists spent $800 million. The Center for Public Integrity found that, since 1998, they had spent nearly $13 billion to influence Congress. 

In the first study of its kind, the Center found that 1,300 registered lobbyists—representing 6,000 clients—had given $1.8 million to President George W. Bush since 2000. Fifty-two of these lobbyists served as fundraisers for Bush and raised another $6 million. Another 79 lobbyists served as treasurers for Congressional campaign committees. Of these lobbyists, some 250 are former members of Congress or agency heads and 2,000 of them formerly worked in senior government positions. Upon his election, Bush appointed 92 of them to advisory teams to effect regulatory decisions in every branch of government. 

In February 2006 PoliticalMoneyLine revealed that lobbying groups broke all records, spending $1.165 billion in the first six months of 2005. This isn’t even the total as the law doesn’t require that many programs and other services paid for by lobbyists be disclosed. 

Some claim business corrupts government. During the Bush administration business corruption produced the world’s largest bankruptcies: Enron and WorldCom. Corruption at Global Crossing, Adelphia, Tyco, ImClone, Merrill Lynch, Qwest, and Arthur Andersen resulted in additional problems. In February 2006 American International Group, one of the world’s largest insurance companies, was fined $1.64 billion for fraud, bidrigging, and improper accounting. The same month Nortel Networks paid a $2.4 billion settlement fee for an accounting scandal. News of insider deals, kickbacks, illegal fees, and other corrupt business practices fill the financial pages. 

President Bush used insider information to sell oil company stock before it plummeted; Dick Cheney was gifted millions in Halliburton retirement benefits that he didn’t qualify for; and Senate Majority Bill Frist (R-TN) is being investigated for his sale of millions of dollars in stock in his family’s hospital business right before an unfavorable public announcement. 

Former House Majority leader Tom DeLay, under indictment in Texas for illegal fundraising and stripped of his leadership post, was afterwards rewarded by party leaders with a seat on the Appropriations Committee as well as a seat on the subcommittee that oversees the Justice Department. DeLay, who owns an exterminator company in Texas, was fined three times by the IRS for failing to pay payroll and income taxes and paid court settlements three times for cheating business partners. (Delay announced his resignation from the House in April 2006.) 

A few more of the recent stories about Republicans caught with their hands in the cookie jar include: 

  • Former Connecticut governor, John Rowland, served ten months in jail for accepting over $100,000 in gifts from people doing business with the state. 
  • In November California Republican Randy Cunningham resigned from the House after pleading guilty to accepting $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors. 
  • In February it was revealed that Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA)  inserted $50 million into the defense budget for military contracts that would benefit all six clients of his Congressional aide’s husband. The husband worked for the defense department before becoming a lobbyist and his wife, the aide, formerly worked as a lobbyist for the military industry. 

Such practices are not likely to stop. Newly elected House Majority Leader, Rep. John A. Boehner (R-OH), maintains the lobbyist-financed Freedom Project, with a lobbyist as treasurer and an all-lobbyist executive board. The project raised $5.94 million over 10 years and contributed $3.26 million to the GOP. Typical expenditures include $21,990 at Sam and Harry’s steakhouse, $16,189 in fees at Manassas’s Robert Trent Jones Golf Club, and $5,990 for lodging at La Quinta Resort & Club near Palm Springs. 

The largest current corruption scandal involves Jack Abramoff, a $100,000-plus fundraiser for Bush, accused of vote buying and influence peddling on Capital Hill. A number of legislators are being investigated, including Tom DeLay, whose former press secretary was an Abramoff business partner. Abramoff, who contributed to 19 Republicans and 6 Democrats from 1999 to 2005, has close ties to Grover Norquist, president of the right-wing Americans for Tax Reform, Ralph Reed, former director of the Christian Coalition, and Karl Rove, Bush’s political strategist. President Bush has escaped indictment, but records indicate that during Bush’s first ten months in office, Abramoff and his team met more than 200 times with top leaders, including some 15 to 20 congresspeople and Bush officials such as Attorney General Ashcroft and Cheney’s advisors. 

Lobbying is popular because it pays off. One lobbying firm, the Carmen Group, even publicizes the benefits and costs of its clients’ fees. In 2004 they collected $11 million in fees and delivered $1.2 billion in assistance to their clients. Republican appointees in the IRS are allowing 65 accounting firms, law firms, banks, and investment houses—major contributors to GOP coffers—to escape prosecution if they pay a fine for creating illegal tax shelters for the super rich. 

Campaign contributions also pay off. By supporting Bush in the election, defense contractors benefited hugely. In 2000 the top six military contractors spent $6.5 million in campaign contributions and $60 million on lobbying. Bush’s invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq pushed the stocks of the leading military contractors up 400 percent and profits increased by 37 percent for Boeing, 44 percent for Lockheed Martin, and 293 percent for Halliburton. 

Several years ago, 60 corporations, including Pfizer, HewlettPackard, and Altria, decided to spend $1.6 million to lobby Congress to escape taxes by creating a special low tax rate on foreign profits brought back into the U.S. Stymied at first, the corporations were finally successful when Bush signed a bill in 2004 to reduce taxes on foreign profits from 35 percent to 5 percent. Last year these companies returned around $300 billion in foreign earnings to the U.S., providing the corporations with more than $100 billion in tax savings. 

By “influencing” Congress with gifts, trips, campaign funding, jobs for relatives, and other inducements, lobbyists are a major reason why legislators slip pet projects—called “earmarks”—into the federal budget to benefit clients. In 1998, when the GOP took control of Congress, there were 4,219 earmarks a year, but under GOP tutelage earmarks have almost quadrupled to 15,877 last year, worth $27 billion. These earmarks escape oversight and scrutiny because they are inserted into the budget behind closed doors and not included in the actual text of the legislation. According to Congressional rules, this is perfectly legal; everyone does it. 

Taxpayers expect little from Congressional ethics committees. In 2005, faced with GOP Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s indictment for illegal campaign fundraising, the GOP weakened ethics rules in place since 1968. The GOP changed the rules because DeLay had been admonished several times for unethical conduct. Public Citizen, a Congressional watchdog group, found that “Neither ethics committee (House or Senate) has much of a track record for ethics enforcement.” 

How long will the corruption last and how deep will it go? While the American people appear unhappy with Bush’s war in Iraq and his handling of Hurricane Katrina, they seem to accept his national policies. The GOP is in firm control of the Supreme Court, the White House, the House and the Senate, and voting districts have been gerrymandered so few seats are expected to change hands in elections. 

Without a major change in voting behavior, the Republican Party is likely to remain in charge and government corruption will continue to break records.

Don Monkerud is an Aptos, Californiabased writer covering politics. 
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