Column by Jacob Sims

Throughout our beginning, it was a common consensus among the philosophers and political officials that constructed our Constitution and our country that excessive power was a negative attribute to our government. The founders crafted a variety of formulas in hopes of restricting its power, including the Bill of Rights, a system of checks and balances, and the Constitution itself. Unfortunately, that isn’t the way that government works. Government will never make itself less powerful.

Lord Acton put it best when he stated, “power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Thus we find ourselves with a government that has only gained power since its existence and has become more corrupt as more time passes.

Most of us won’t remember the events that happened earlier in our lifetime, but from the time that most of us were born up to the present, we have lived in two of the most corruption-laden decades in U.S. history. As you will find out, corruption is not partisan, it is innate with large government.

If you were born before 1990, you lived through Senator David Durenberger’s (R-Minn.) expulsion and conviction of the misuse of public funds.

Democratic insider Clark Clifford was involved with a scandal in the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI).

The House banking crisis of 1992 involved hundreds of members of the House, including 22 that were specifically called out in the report. Representatives from both parties overdrew from the House Bank with hundreds of checks without penalty. Mary Rose Oakar (D-Ohio) who was one of the 22, also pled guilty to campaign finance laws.

Two of Bill Clinton’s failed nominations for attorney general, Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood, had hired illegal aliens prior to public nominations (Baird also didn’t pay her Social Security taxes). This also happened with George W. Bush in 2001 when he had nominated Linda Chavez for secretary of labor and Bernard Kerik for homeland security secretary.

President Barack Obama’s nomination difficulties were, primarily, due to not paying taxes. Kathleen Sebelius, Tom Daschle, Hilda Solis, and the infamous Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner were a few of them.

Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.) was convicted in the Congressional Post Office Scandal after top Democrats tried to shut down the U.S. Capital Police investigations and Thomas Foley (D-Wash.) had held the U.S. Postal Service report in silence until a media leak. Naturally, Clinton pardoned Rostenkowski at the end of his presidency.

Wes Cooley (R-Ore.) deliberately lied on a 1994 voter information pamphlet. Walter Tucker (D-Calif.) resigned before conviction of demanding and accepting bribes, extortion and tax evasion.

Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) paid $300,000 for the misuse of tax exemptions. Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros pled guilty for lying to the FBI on 18 counts of conspiracy.

Then there was the whole Monica Lewinsky nonsense, followed by Clinton’s 396 pardons.

To start off the new millennium of corruption, Edward Mezinsky (D-Iowa) was found guilty of 31 charges of fraud. Jim Traficant (D-Ohio) had 10 felony counts of financial corruption. Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.) accepted illegal contributions. William Jefferson (D-La.) was indicted on 16 charges of conspiracy to commit bribery and fraud.

Most of us will vaguely recall the Enron collapse of 2002, when Kenneth Lay (R) pled guilty to 10 counts of securities fraud and committed campaign contributions to 258 public officials.

Jack Abramoff, a Republican lobbyist, pled guilty for conspiracy, tax evasion and corruption of public officials (including Tom DeLay (R-Texas) Robert Ney (R-Ohio) Harry Reid (R-Nev.) and many more). The Valerie Plame Affair followed this where Scooter Libby (Dick Cheney’s Chief of Staff) was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice. And, of course, we all remember Bush’s firing of federal attorneys.

This was followed by a flurry of discoveries of Detroit’s Democratic mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s conviction of lying under oath and obstruction of justice, John Edwards’ (D-N.C.) extramarital affair, Eliot Spitzer’s (D-N.Y.) hooker problem, and Rod Blagojevich’s (D-Ill.) attempt to sell Obama’s Senate seat.

Think of the major problems that we face as a nation today: Social Security, public education, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare and public debt. All of these, whether directly or indirectly, were caused by the government’s negligence, dishonesty or irresponsibility.

With the government’s proven track record, it is almost humorous that some continue to insist on expanding the size of government with a childlike naivety that Congress and our oligarchy called government will “change” because we have a new leader at the top.

What I am saying is instead of giving the incompetent and ineffective government more power, with more money from our taxes and more power to intervene in our daily lives, why not reduce their power and influence by reducing the means of their power (money) and their size?