Congress Junkets While Restricting The Rest Of Us

Amidst all of the stimulus hoopla lately, the ongoing practice of Congressional junketeering has continued unchanged.

A recent Wall Street Journal piece noted that both parties' Congressional delegations went on their retreats to lush resorts, after publicly railing against, pillorying and punishing executives of companies such as AIG and/or Wells Fargo for the same actions.

Yes, the age-old practice of Congressional retreats, junkets overseas, etc., continues as in the past, despite any and all alleged lobbying reforms.

The latest ploy is one of the most cynical. Here's how it works.

Thanks to bribery and lobbying payoff scandals over the years, especially the fairly recent Jack Abramoff affair, lobbyists and interested corporations and other groups can't give expensive gifts or money directly to, say, Frisco Nan. But what they can, and now do, is this.

A group of interested organizations and/or individuals form an institute or other non-profit entity. They solicit donations from the founders, and other like-minded parties.

The institute then funds things like junkets, or sending Congressional aides to the party retreat at posh resorts like the Homestead or Greenbriar. They also name various Congressional members to honorary board posts at the institute, and hold dinners, by the institute, at the retreat. All of the institute's board members, of course, attend.

In spy novels, this is known as using a 'cutout.' The institute is the legal middleman that can give money to Congressional members and/or fund their trips and extravagant vacations. The actual interested entities merely fund the institute.

Congress, of course, chooses to call this legal, and not recognize the lavish gift-giving and bribing of your local Representative, or your state's Senator.

That's the low regard in which our Congressional delegations hold us voters. They cynically allow these thinly-veiled occasions to receive gifts, trips, etc., and pretend they are not lobbying.

This is why I would not have a problem with, in any given election cycle, every voter casting his/her vote for the non-incumbent candidate for the House and Senate. Having 435 new Representatives and 33 new Senators can't be a bad thing, can it?

Imagine the fresh perspectives on our country's troubles if Congress didn't consist of 535 stiffs owing each other favors, and constantly passing laws to help maintain all of their legislative careers, draw lavish Congressional pensions, and generally inflate their own importances?