The current administration is widely described as operating in an environment of unprecedented opportunities for private enrichment through public power—and it’s a systemic problem blurring the line between public duty and private gain.
Trading stocks in the same companies the federal government is regulating, negotiating personal business deals while on official government trips, and operating cryptocurrency firms earning billions are just a few ways that the administration is driving trucks through ethics loopholes and presidential immunity decisions by the Supreme Court.
At the same time, the administration has been dismantling oversight and accountability agencies such as Inspectors General, pausing enforcement of anti-bribery and foreign influence laws, and replacing non-aligned watchdog leaders with political allies whose only qualifications may be loyalty to the president. When oversight agencies are hollowed out, corruption becomes easier to commit and harder to detect.
This pattern in which donors, corporate sponsors, and foreign governments receive official benefits for financial contributions creates a marketplace where our government is clearly for sale to the highest bidder.
And where does that leave us? Out in the cold dealing with exorbitant prices for food, gas, and everything, paying for a costly war in human life and treasure, and seeing our social contract torn up by deep cuts to our Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security (benefits that we have earned and paid for). I urge everyone to vote in the mid-terms and tell this administration and their collaborators in Congress: We’re NOT going to take this anymore. Use your vote to restore oversite with three functioning branches of government, as the constitution intended, and end this grift and corruption before it ends the country we love and the principles we have strived to live by.
Robin Factor
Roxbury
