Congressional Democrats Anti-Anti-Corruption

While the major media gave plaudits to Congress passing a Potemkin ethics reform bill, which still shelters from public view and allows the potentially corrupting and often wasteful personal earmarks add-ons to funding bills, flying beneath the media’s sensitivity to corruption are the new Democrat majority’s turning away from government investigations of charities’ and unions’ abuse of their contributors’ funds.

In 2006, Democrat Senator Max Baucus assumed chair of the Senate Finance Committee. The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports on an August interview that “he does not give high priority to cracking down on charitable abuses or imposing new regulations on nonprofit groups such as hospitals.” Senator Baucus told the Chronicle, “That’s not at the top of my list…I haven’t got time.” Charity abuse had been a priority of his predecessor, Republican Senator Charles Grassley.

Similarly, the Chronicle reports that the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight chair, former civil rights marcher Georgia Democrat John Lewis, “dropped that investigative theme [what nonprofits do to “help the poor and elderly”] in favor of generally lightweight discussion topics.”

Similarly, again, the Department of Labor’s Office of Labor Management Standards, which investigates union financial malfeasance, and which found much, had its already relatively miniscule budget trimmed from a recommended $57-million to $45-million.

Contributors to charities and to union coffers through dues deserve better, as do taxpayers who are expected by Democrats in Congress to pay more to offset the tax revenue losses caused by abuse of tax-exempt status by some organizations.

A Republican controlled Congress imposed multi-billion costs upon private industry in Sarbanes-Oxley, to prevent corruption. The Democrat controlled Congress stands in stark contrast regarding its constituencies and campaign contributors.