There are a few things in life that are certainties; the government lying to you may now be included with two old standards, death and taxes. Other than the mafia and Bernie Madoff, who runs the world’s largest unregistered hedge fund, no one beats the U.S. government in loan sharking, lying, shake-downs and Ponzi schemes.
Blame neither the former Republican regime, nor cast a wary eye to the newly elected President-there is enough blame to share within the government. But in general, is a little accountability too much to ask?
Elected officials’ lack of accountability is as old as politics, itself. Look no further than the Bible’s New Testament to see Pontius Pilate “wash his hands” of political situations.
Washington, D.C. councilman and former mayor, Marion Barry, is being charged with failure to pay his income taxes for 2007. This comes after fines and fees for not paying his income taxes from 1999 to 2004. One can excuse not paying income tax in 1999 with the whole “Y2K” thing bringing Armageddon. Not paying from there on out, however, means that Uncle Sam is going to send out the strong-arm of the IRS.
This is hardly unexpected from a man who brought cocaine abuse and prostitutes to the masses while in office in 1990. He was re-elected as Mayor in 1995, hardly held accountable for his actions.
President Barack Obama promised to run a transparent government, free from lobbyist influence. Twice, the new administration has asked for ethics committee waivers to hire lobbyists for higher level executive positions and place approximately a dozen in lower level positions. To be fair, the President made clarification that no executive branch employees would be hired from an agency or a program for which they lobbied in the last two years.
Yet, the newly appointed Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has been found guilty of not paying the employer portion of his Social Security taxes for three years. This man is in charge of trillions of tax payer dollars to be doled out to companies in the bail-out plan. One can concede that the tax code is wordy and clumsy. But being the former New York Federal Reserve Chief would lend some expertise to the tax code and how to pay your taxes.
Speaking of the trillions of dollars used in the bailout to be watched by the tax dodging Treasury Secretary, approximately $2 trillion has been handed over to big business with nary a condition to which it must be held accountable.
The economy has declined a record 44 percent from 2007 to the present day; 2008 will see the sixth largest bonus pool to the financial industry executives and staff. Eighteen billion of our tax dollars are going to executive bonuses while you and I are looking in the ashtrays of our cars for some quarters to buy a coffee.
Yet, the Treasury Department has refused to disclose what securities and loans they have backed for corporations with the bail-out monies. I am not a math-magician, but giving out trillions of dollars without transparent accountability built in is a strategy that just does not add up.
Certain quirks inherently come with politics-from the occasional wide-stance in the bathroom stall, selling a Senate seat to Oprah or not paying your taxes while snorting cocaine. Until us the voters decide to hold elected officials accountable through petition, letters, media and refusal to re-elect corrupt officials, then death, lying and taxes will be business as usual.
Lew Griffith is a graduate student at Saint Louis University.
