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The Tax-Fueled Mechanics Of Political Money-Laundering ...and a few words about the only thing that can stop it. SO, YOU GET ELECTED TO OFFICE and there you are, just metaphorical inches from a river of cash flowing into the treasury, and you can't touch it-- directly. Well, there's a workaround, as you quickly learn, if you didn't know all about it before deciding to go into a political career. You see, your office puts you in a position to dish out fat dollops of that cash to other people. Those other people can and will scratch back when their backs have been scratched. FOR EXAMPLE, say you help throw a nice contract for the payment of lots of taxpayers' money to an arms manufacturer. That manufacturer can be expected to dish some of that money back your way in the form of "campaign contributions" through its benefitting officers and staff (after it's been deposited in the corporate account and then paid out in salaries and bonuses). You then live very well while campaigning for your next term-- which is pretty much all the time; and/or you make arrangements to convert the money for direct personal use in any of the various convoluted ways for doing so dreamt-up by folks in your position over the past 7½ decades of brimming troughs in Washington and the state capitols. OR, IF YOU'RE IN SOME STATE OFFICES you might be able to get some of that money back in speaking fees. If you're a federal official, you certainly can do this after you leave office, in a delayed quid pro quo. Speaking of "after leaving office", a lot of that dished-out tax money can get back to you directly when you take a seat on the board of a beneficiary corporation or take a nicely-paid position filling a newly-created "senior vice-president" slot, or whatever. One way or another, people getting big helpings of other people's money will do what it takes to keep the largesse coming, including showing their appreciation to those responsible. EXACTLY THE SAME DYNAMIC PLAYS OUT in the cat-house of United States foreign policy. Huge bowlfuls of "foreign aid" get ladled out to favored foreign governments, which in certain cases is reciprocated very effectively by benefits to the responsible officials, ensuring that the OPM (other people's money) sugar truck keeps making regular deliveries. For instance, over the years the US has given more than $127 billion of American taxpayers' money to Israeli officeholders. This is the most foreign aid given to any country since World War II. Not coincidentally, Israel's supporters, who view themselves as beneficiaries of this largesse and who may very reasonably view the United States' gifts as freeing up money they might otherwise have been inclined to contribute to Israel themselves, have vigorously lobbied Congress over all the same years to keep the funds coming. Israel's supporters also show their appreciation with direct campaign contributions to the office-holders who have delivered the scratching-- indeed, just one, casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, poured $150 million into candidates' pockets during the 2012 election cycle. Likewise, the American arms makers whose product sales are often part of the "foreign aid" mix can be expected to funnel significant portions of the profits back to the politicians responsible for priming the pump. One way or another, carefully-targeted gifts of American tax dollars can produce corresponding reciprocal gifts, and officeholders know it. A little bit of "laundering" has to be done to make it all work, but that's not a problem, and with around 144 countries receiving United States foreign aid, this is a real rainstorm area of opportunity. AS CAN READILY BE SEEN, there's a very perverse incentive in place for the nurturing by the political class of the frauds and fictions by which the systematic misapplication of the income tax was successfully initiated in the middle of World War II:
It is not at all coincidental that government giveaways of OPM began in earnest at the same time-- those giveaways only became possible because of the sudden tsunami of wealth flowing into the hands of the political class under the misapplication scheme. Nor is it coincidental that soon after that point in the mid-1940s 'Mr. Smith Goes To Washington' began to seem quaint and Pollyanna-ish By the same token, it is also easy to see that relief from the tax fraud is not likely to be high on the "swamp-creature" agenda. Instead, relief from the "ignorance tax" and all its evil effects, and restoration of the real "income tax" with all its beneficial effects must come from the People-- a term referring to both the sovereign in law and the most powerful force in this blessed land when the citizenry is aroused and united by understanding of a shared interest. HERE IS HOW that remedy works. All it needs to get to the tipping point-- the remedy point-- is your diligent, unflagging effort to teach either this material, this material or this material to everyone you can (your choice-- all have a different demeanor and different virtues). There will be no remedy in any other way. The Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters. -Daniel Webster
"It is not the function of our Government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the Government from falling into error." -U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson
Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them -Frederick Douglass
"The greatest menace to freedom is an inert people.” -Louis Brandeis |
