A bit of corruption in Congress? Say it Ain’t So!
Democrats, like the GOP before them, refuse to give any real teeth to an Ethics Committee. Teeth means that you give an oustide group the power to investigate and penalize. As long as the fox guards the henhouse, nothing happens. Several members of Congress have been convicted of crimes without ever being reprimanded, not the best statistic for an ethics committee.
The Democrats have made strides in cleaning up some of the more obvious, but trivial, ethics issues in Congress, but have stopped short of true reform. And they are generally running things in a much more bi-partisan manner than the GOP did. The best you can say is that they’ve restored Congress to however dysfunctional is was before the Bushies came in and completely broke it.
Let’s look at energy policy: Ever since Opec in the 1970s, it has been a top priority of every Administration to reduce our dependence on Middle Eastern oil. Everyone with two functioning neurons knows the future of the country, and quite possible the species, rests with renewable energy sources like sun, wind, and water.
After a disasterous war in Iraq, and gas prices going to $4/gallon (still a good price), what has our government chosent to do? Invest in coal. We’ve decided to go back 100 years or so. Richard Gephardt and “a powerful roster of Democrats and Republicans†are giving away our futures.