Saving Democracy, Documented

Bloated Budgets and Unchecked Wasteful Spending

    In President Eisenhower’s farewell address to the nation on January 17th 1961 he stated: “we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military–industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted.” This ominous reminder from the one time supreme allied commander of WWII originally contained the term military-industrial congressional complex speaking to the dangers of not just the infrastructure of military spending, but how its very nature is promoted and influenced by congress. Dangers lie in the political contributions by these industries to members of congress, lobbying to support these contracts and industries, and endless networks of contracts to private industries. This alone is insidious, but lack of oversight within the budgets of our armed forces, and blatant disregard, are fueling a pipeline of missing and overspent money.

    In a June 2016 report by the Department of Defense (DOD) office of Inspector General found that the U.S. Army made 2.8 trillion in incorrect adjustments in a single quarter of 2015, as well as 6.5 trillion in incorrect adjustments for the year. These figures were also reported in Reuters in August of 2016. These staggering figures speak to the blatant disregard for oversight in the institutions commissioned to defend (and some might argue modern day imperialize) the interests of the United States. The specific DODIG report is available here (http://www.dodig.mil/pubs). The DOD report found that the U.S. Army “materially misstated” their financial statements even going so far as to falsifying reports and stating that they were outright missing over 16,000 financial data records. Changes to some accounts resulted in a domino effect down the line of spending causing a current of errors and changes along the way. According to Reuters’ interview of Jack Armstrong, retired Defense Inspector General Official whose job it was to oversee the audit of the U.S. Army general fund, states that the accounting juggling and falsification were already being made in 2010. The question remains how long the practice of cover-ups and accounting juggling have been going on?

    Why is this even important? In an election season that continues to lack in substantial policy discussion, both mainstream Presidential candidates have spoken to a belief in the increase in government spending on the defense (offense, depending on how you look at it) apparatus of the United States. This is concerning not only because of the bloated and wasted spending currently occurring, the lack of oversight and action by offices charged with oversight, but also because those in charge of our federal government want to spend more without looking where it is going to begin with. The flagrant spending in the military industrial complex President Eisenhower warned us of is alive, well and being flaunted in the public’s face. However, defense is always a good political tool to obtain votes so few to no politicians on the national stage are taking on defense spending or the size of the military.

    If you go to USdebtclock.org right now you will see the debt counter in action as it ticks ever upward. As a country we are currently $19,527,290,400,000 in debt and constantly climbing. When U.S. institutions charged with our defense are not held accountable for their lost and wasteful spending are they really defending liberty, or simply supporting their own existence? The misspending or loss of $6.5 trillion at the hands of the U.S. Army alone is a staggering figure that could easily be used to rebuild crumbling infrastructure, maintain our natural landscapes, and lower the national debt. However those accountable, our congressional members and even audit offices continue to let flagrant spending go unanswered. Where does it end and does the electorate even have the ability to stop the juggernaut as its war machine rolls on?

Is your State a Kleptocracy?

Four ways corruption is costing our country

Since the department of Justice defines public corruption as “crimes involving abuses of the public trust by government officials”, a definition of what corruption is set by the federal government. However, there is very little empirical evidence as to the effect of government corruption on government spending and resource allocation. This should come as no surprise to anyone given that politicians write the rules by which they play the game. This lack of checks leads to furtherance of self-interests, at the expense of citizens. 

In the May/June 2014 issue of the Public Administration Review journal, Cheol Liu of City University of Hong Kong, and John Mikesell of Indiana State University published The Impact of Public Officials’ Corruption on the Size and Allocation of U.S. State Spending. Using conviction data by state for the period between 1976 and 2008 for over 25,000 people, Liu and Mikesell discovered four factors that were consistent for corruption in states. The convictions were then compared to the number of state employees to account for state population difference. In order to ensure validity, the authors based the corruption convictions on federal corruption laws (because local laws vary by state). This showed that convictions were not just a measure of law enforcement activity in that particular state, and used variables that accounted for reverse causality. 

The study identified the following factors in the most corrupt states. It is worth noting that corruption was found to exist in both red and blue states, consistent with other findings that this is not a partisan issue. 

1. The most corrupt states spend more money on and favor capital construction projects. These types of projects involve large, non-standard activities with few contractors, lacking transparency and susceptible to bribes. 

2. Real per capita total wages of public official salaries are higher in the most corrupt states. Higher salaries benefit only the employees, and those employees were also more likely to engage in deficit financing, thus masking the true cost of government spending. 

3. The most corrupt states spent more money on law enforcement and prisons speaking to the direct legal cost of corruption. Corruption leads to unfair laws and inconsistent enforcement for the benefit of the private prison industry. 

4. The most corrupt states spent less money on education at all levels, public welfare, health, and hospitals. While the merits of healthcare costs are the topic of another discussion, these sectors offer less room for public corruption. 

The list of corrupt states can be found in the article link below. These factors suggest that regardless of political affiliation and ideology it is up to the citizens in each state to examine the above four factors and see how they apply in their state. Awareness is key, however the factors now identified are the tool to begin the hunt for corruption at all levels of government. The impact is most evident in Liu and Mikesell’s conclusion that the ten most corrupt states could have reduced their total state expenditure by $1,308 per capita if their corruption levels were merely reduced to the mean average of corrupted states. Click here to see if your state is a kleptocracy (pdf).

The Supreme Court Just Made it Harder to Prosecute Corrupt Politicians

It’s Christmas in June this year, at least for big money in politics. The Supreme Court yesterday overturned the conviction of former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell.

The McDonnells received more than $175,000 in lavish gifts and loans, including a Rolex and a $20,000 shopping spree, in exchange for political favors.

But, “everybody does it!” Right?

Wrong. As MAYDAY.US-endorsed reformer and candidate for New York’s 19^th district Zephyr Teachout put it, “we’re not talking about a few ham sandwiches.”

Zephyr knows “there’s no such as thing as free Rolex.” She knows that overturning McDonnell’s conviction overturned “more than 700 years of history…and [left] citizens facing a crisis of political corruption with even fewer tools to fight it.”

This ruling is a massive blow to our fight against political corruption. This ruling affects pending corruption cases, from Robert Menendez to Sheldon Silver. This ruling raises the bar for prosecuting political corruption so high it is hard to see.

As a friend-of-the-court brief put it: “the notion that the Constitution protects the sale of access to and influence over government decision-making processes contradicts fundamental premises of our system of government.”

It is time to reclaim our democracy. Take a stand here.

Read the full story on Politico

Top 10 Reasons to Support Tim Canova

1. Fixing Washington is #1 on his website (and nowhere to be found on his opponent’s). 
   
2. Supports public funding of elections
   
3. Does not accept corporate & special interest money (20% of his opponent’s money is from PACs)
   
4. Believes reversing Citizens United should be a litmus test for any nominee to the Supreme Court
   
5. Will organize a bipartisan congressional caucus to reform our campaign finance system and clean up our political system
   
6. Supports full disclosure via the DISCLOSE Act (as of February 26, 2016, his opponent refused to co-sponsor this legislation which would shine a light on the flood of special-interest money)
   
7. Entered the race because of his professional experience opposing the TPP (massive trade deal authored and pushed by corporate lobbyists, and supported by his opponent). When his opponent sided with corporate interests, Tim decided he had to step up and challenge this corruption for the American people.
   
8. The most credible reformer in the 2016 presidential election, the Independent Senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, endorsed Tim Canova to challenge the status quo.
   
9. Called for more open, public debates. His opponent refused to debate him in front of Florida voters and even used her leadership position to stifle the presidential debate nationally.
   
10. Tim won’t change his position based on big money interests. For example, he supports medical marijuana for vets in FL; his opponent has offered to reconsider her opposition in exchange for political favors.

Do you agree? Chip in now to support our efforts to elect strong reformers nationwide! 

Young voters driven to fight corruption, income inequality

18-25 year-olds are ready to take on the special interest establishment, with 38% identifying corruption as the biggest problem facing America. Are you? Sign up to fight back!

luntzglobal: “‘Corruption’ is Public Enemy No. 1 to young Americans. They think it’s rampant, from Wall Street to Washington, and this rejection of corruption underlies all of their public policy opinions.”

“It is therefore not surprising that the No. 1 issue for the Snapchat Generation is income equality, which at 28%, ranks first among 16 pressing issues. Those respondents said they were ‘worried [most] about the widening gap between the rich and poor. The rich aren’t paying their fair share and the poor are suffering.’” [sic in original]