Requiring Accountability From
Pampered Public Servants
By Emily Spence
09 February, 2009
Countercurrents.org
The taxpayers of Mississippi, whether they condoned the action or not, bought their current or a former governor an eight seat plane for 3.7 million dollars. The state's authorizing fiscal managers, obviously, must have deemed it an essential for his office and ratified its purchase order. In addition, it costs approximately $1,200 to operate for each hour in use for trips by the present governor's family, associates and himself.
Despite its advantages, he, nonetheless, has decided to possibly recommend its being auctioned off to generate some additional revenue for his state even though the resale value won't be all that high in light of the poor surrounding economic circumstances. However, he, apparently, doesn't feel too "put out" by the thought of giving it up since the state government owns two or three other planes for "official" use that he can commandeer any time that he would elect to do so for his various excursions. (The background information concerning this plane, including the possibility of its sale, was briefly discussed on a recent news program aired in Massachusetts.)
Then again, Nancy Pelosi, from a state in which towns and counties are, one after another, publicly declaring bankruptcy, seems possibly much worse than her Mississippi counterparts in her choices pertaining to flagrantly self-indulgent behaviors. Indeed, it is outrageous that many of our government representatives have the arrogant gall to blithely continue in their assumption that they are entitled to extraordinary perks and privileges at taxpayers' expense despite the economic downturn, along with related homelessness, joblessness and other serious hardships being faced by many citizens who voted them into office.
Meanwhile, her excess is particularly evident in that she has spent an exorbitant amount for frequently jetting back and forth between California and Washington, D.C., along with requesting special stipulations relative to her numerous flights. Indeed, according to Jake Tapper, an ABC News correspondent, "On Feb. 1 [2007], unnamed administration and congressional sources leaked to the Washington Times that Pelosi was 'seeking regular military flights not only for herself and her staff but also for relatives and for other members of the California delegation [1].'" At the same time, one can assume that, while many politicians are encouraging fossil fuel curtailment for the public at large, she is aware that her carbon footprint is blatantly high due to an unrestrained desire to flit back and forth across the American terrain whenever the inclination strikes.
Even so and regardless of the number of extraordinary benefits certain spoiled individuals can successfully requisition above and beyond any reasonable norm, they always want, expect and demand more. At the same time, they've no intention of ever thinking about girding belts to attempt frugality, as is clearly evidenced by this excerpt from Jim Abrams's "Congress Members Get $4,000 Pay Raise," written last year. [2]
"Fortunately for members of Congress, their pay isn't tied to their approval ratings. Lawmakers in 2008 will receive salaries of $169,300, a boost of $4,100 over the pay they have lived with since January 2006.
"That 2.5 percent increase is mirrored by similar raises for associate justices of the Supreme Court, who will see their pay go from $203,000 to $208,100, and Chief Justice John Roberts, whose pay will rise to $217,400 from $212,100.
"The salary figures were published in Tuesday's edition of the Federal Register."
Let's, though, return to Mississippi because it is really there that the disparity between the lavish opportunities afforded decadent governmental employees and the other state's citizens are glaringly pronounced. For example, Mississippi Census Data from 2006 includes the following facts [3]:
Population: 2,918,785
Employment Status (population 16 years and older)
Employed: 111.8%
Unemployed: 11.4%
Income
Median Household Income: $36,338
Per capita Income: $19,365
Male full-time, year round, workers median income: $36,819
Female full-time, year round, workers median income: $26,838
Families below poverty level: 16.3%
Individuals below poverty level: 20.6%
Considering such data, one wonders that any Mississippi public official could conclude that taxpayers in that state were so affluent that they could afford to buy a total of three or four planes for their elected public servants. Likewise, one is baffled that any politician, especially after the horrific hurricane damage experienced by a huge number of his constituents, could imagine that luxurious frivolities like personal jets are necessary at all, especially when rental planes or, better yet, commercial airlines are readily available for quick transportation to meetings that cannot be adequately addressed through a teleconference or some other inexpensive means.
Meanwhile, the impoverished members of society in Mississippi, as is the case in many other states, get short shrift when it comes to their needs being met, even after a major enduring disaster, such as Hurricane Katrina brought in its wake. So it was no bombshell in the end when $600 million was approved to expand a port after being snatched from the affordable housing program that could have helped unfortunate residents living in formaldehyde ridden FEMA trailers after losing their homes, as well as other down and out citizens.
All considered, critics of the plan viewed it as a sign that Mississippi's Republican governor, a former lobbyist, preferred to support moneyed interests over extending a helping hand to underprivileged Mississippians suffering in the aftermath of traumatic circumstances. [4] He has his opulent designs, after all, and his priorities are, most certainly, upper crust.
His deliberate oversight in mind, all sorts of dishonorable obscenities need to stop immediately whether they involve government at the local, state or federal level, Wall Street or other venues. We cannot and should not continue to have the sort of divisive society that callously favors elitist agendas at the expense of general human welfare and reasonable reparation for damages rendered to hurricane and Wall Street victims alike.
Similarly, justice must be served. As such, its time that offenders, slick financial hustlers and other types, stop being coddled, face prison terms if stipulated by law and are mandated to make amends to the many individuals who they harmed.
Moreover, people in the US, as many of their European counterparts are presently doing, need to vigorously demand major changes in policies to right myriad social wrongs rather than act like patient passive beggars in the face of flagrant abuse of power and public funds since, clearly, they cannot expect the needed alterations to be automatically delivered from the top on down without firm, continual and proactive pressures applied from their ranks at the bottom. In other words, they need to get good and mad after which they do something about the cause of their anger.
At the same time, I am not proposing acts of disorderly conduct. Yet, surely the American public can and should develop a collective sense of purpose and the resourcefulness to find ways to effectively insist that major changes in government procedures transpire post haste rather than continue to flaccidly wait for Godot, an unseen persona in a Samuel Beckett play involving two character who pass up potentially tremendous, life changing opportunities in expectation that Godot will, eventually, show up out of the blue.
No Godot will arrive unless he is unequivocally pressured to come forth. Instead, life will continue as always with bailout and other monies continually subverted to provide bonuses, planes, jet rides, pay raises and other extravagances that do not serve the American public one iota.
Simultaneously, the resource wars, unwinnable by any stretch of the imagination based on indigenous populations not wanting their lands bombed and occupied by foreigners coveting fossil fuel or pipeline control, will continue to draw billions of dollars each month away from development of renewable energy sources, infrastructure renewal, development of public transportation, job provision, bankruptcy relief at the state level and other desperately needed uplifts in the homeland. At the same time, the economy will continue to crumble with more and more Americans caught up in severe privation due to home foreclosures, lack of employment and other distressing circumstances without sufficient relief measures being quickly put in place, especially in locations like Mississippi and California that are facing tremendous dire upheavals.
In other words, we need to find a mechanism to ensure that our, yes -- OUR, public servants are made to be accountable for their choices. In addition, we need to help them to realize that many of the bail out recipients garnering generous fiscal support have no intention of altering their self-gratifying habits unless forced to do so.
Likewise, we must encourage them to understand that Main Street folks cannot spend like mad to jumpstart the economy when their jobs disappeared overseas, the fiscal downturn led to their layoffs or their wages dropped to ridiculous levels. Besides, our legislators really should have seen this whole financial mess in which we're all, at some level, embroiled, coming -- particularly so when the division of wealth in America has been increasingly skewed for years.
As Terrance Heath points out in "Concentrating the Wealth, Pt. 2" [5], "It’s hard not to wonder about the pure contrarian inanity of the current conservative position. Our military is by far the strongest in the world, while our trains are among the slowest and our sewers are collapsing. So they propose raising spending on the military and cutting domestic investment. We suffer Gilded Age inequality, with the wealthiest 15,000 families — one-one hundredth of one percent of the population — capturing fully one-fourth of the entire income growth from 2000 to 2006. Their average income rose from $15.2 million per year to $29.7 million per year. Meanwhile, the rest of us — 133 million households that make up 90 percent of the country - divided up 4% of the nation’s income, adding about $305 to our average $30,354 income. So conservatives push for more tax cuts for the wealthy, while proposing to tax employer based health benefits. Corporate profits (prior to the recession) have catapulted to what is by far the highest percentage of national income in the past half century. So they want to cut corporate taxes, inevitably increasing the burden on labor. The economic future looks dim because consumers, drowning in debt, are cutting back. So they suggest cutting taxes on corporate investments will generate new investments and growth — as if companies don't need someone to buy the products they make."
In a similar vein, Jason Green, in "Eighty-six Percent of Bailout Money Used for Executive Bonuses" [6], indirectly suggests some of the dangers of having wealth collected in the hands of a few, who receive public funds and other forms of support without strict oversight:
"When confronted about these numbers, the executives will always claim that the bonuses are paid out of other funds and company earnings. This completely ignores the fact that without the taxpayers’ bailout money, there would be no earnings!"
~~~
"Yet, that didn't stop their campaign contribution money from spewing out. Goldman was Obama’s largest corporate campaign contributor, with $874,207. Also in his top 20 were three other recipients of bailout capital: JP Morgan/Chase, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley.
"Read the full article here. It’s worth also noting that Goldman Sachs was John McCain’s 4th largest contributor, just behind Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, and Morgan Stanley (source).
"I'm ready for some 'Change we can believe in', but I doubt it will come from those in Washington who are bought and paid for."
In the end, any unwarranted and wasteful spending by a governor, a Congress member or any other civil employee is deeply offensive in and by itself. When it represents a larger problem -- one in which irresponsibility, greed, graft and corruption are carried out across a wide swath of the U. S. landscape, one can only hope that enough Americans will eventually get sufficiently disgusted and outraged to exert the kinds of pressure needed to rid our nation once and for all of so much vulgar ugliness.
Such radical measures are unquestionably necessary, especially as the economy continues to sink, the voluminous public debt approaches eleven trillion dollars, some of our leaders act like oligarchs, we drift towards totalitarianism and barely restrained federal spending reaches an all time high. Hopefully, the public can find successful means to address these intersected woes and apply them soon.
References:
[1] Details are provided at: ABC News: Pentagon Rejects Speaker Pelosi's Request for Mili...
(http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Story?id=2858225&page=1) and Pelosi Jet Request Sparks Debate, Does Size Matter When It C...
(http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/07/
eveningnews/main2445668.shtml).
[2] For the entire report, please go to: Congress Members Get $4,000 Pay Raise
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/
20080109/congress-salaries/).
[3] Information was derived from:Census Data: Mississippi | Elections | washingtonpost.com
(http://projects.washingtonpost.com/
elections/keyraces/census/ms/).
[4] The residential funds reallocation is discussed at: Feds OK Mississippi's Katrina grant diversion - Life- msnbc....
(http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22805282/).
[5] A fuller analysis is located at: The Republic of T. » Concentrating the Wealth, Pt. 2
(http://www.republicoft.com/2008/10/31/
concentrating-the-wealth-pt-2/).
[6] The related article can be accessed at: 86% of Bailout Money Used for Executive Bonuses | EndTheBail...
(http://endthebailouts.com/2008/11/07/86-of-
bailout-money-used-for-executive-bonuses/).
Emily Spence is a progressive living in Massachusetts. She has spent many years involved with assorted types of human rights, environmental and social service efforts.
