Rotting from Within

Government is inherently corrupt.  The fact that anything gets done ostensibly to benefit the governed that also doesn’t diminish individual freedom and line the pockets of those governing is most often just an oversight.  Our founding fathers knew this and did their level best to construct a mechanism of governance which would minimize this genetic flaw … at the expense of substantial legislative, executive and judicial efficiency.

However, almost 240 years later, the devilishly devious minds of our elected snollygosters have managed to circumvent most of these Constitutional barriers … the latest being the legislation that became law last night in Washington.  From Politico we read about the law that broke our latest fiscal impasses:

The legislation also includes a McConnell-written proposal that would allow Congress to disapprove of the debt-ceiling increase. Lawmakers will formally vote on rejecting the bump of the borrowing limit - if it passed, it could be vetoed by Obama. 

 The deal would also deliver back pay to furloughed federal workers, require a study of income verification for people seeking health-insurance subsidies under the Affordable Care Act and also allows the Treasury Department to use extraordinary measures to pay the nation’s bills if Congress doesn’t raise the debt ceiling in a timely fashion.

Other than a little window dressing that means nothing to our power-lusting President, this is a rollover.  Basically, the power of the purse, as granted to the legislature in the Constitution, has been greatly usurped by corrupt politicians of both stripes in Washington ... much of this prerogative is now the President's ... a very dangerous thing.  For what?  So that many in Congress might get a puff-piece in the New York Times or help insure their re-election … read and weep: The Conversation.

Oh yes, and Republican Senate leader, Mitch McConnell, also gets a $3 billion piece of pork for his state, Kentucky … see: The WFPL News.  I suspect there are surely some other bits of bacon also included in this legislative travesty.

QED

Afterward: I was right about the additional bacon, see: The Hill Story.