Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Power Corrupts The Congressional Black Caucus

The Congressional Black Caucus has become one of the most corrupt organizations in government:

Like so many other Washington political organizations, the Black Caucus has an official fund-raising arm subject to federal rules, but it dodges those laws with a network of “nonprofit groups” that lets it rake in unlimited amounts of cash from corporations and labor unions.

The money is supposed to help disadvantaged African-Americans but instead most of it is spent on lawmakers’ costly golf outings and annual casino jaunts as well as elaborate galas where lobbyists and executives who donate to caucus charities can mingle with lawmakers and push their agendas.

In the last four years alone, the Congressional Black Caucus’s unregulated charitable wings took in at least $55 million but the bulk of the cash was not spent on true charitable causes. Four million dollars—all from major corporations—went to purchase a headquarters on prestigious Embassy Row in Washington D.C. and nearly $1 million was spent on the group’s gala dinner and conference billed as “Hollywood on the Potomac.”


The Congressional Black Caucus has escaped much-needed scrutiny because our politically-correct culture labels any criticism of it as racism. Diminished scrutiny has allowed this organization to sink to new depths of corruption by allowing the law to be skirted to grant certain special interests greater influence.

Repealing the 17th Amendment would decentralize government power, resulting in less corruption as powerful interests have less to gain from influencing one central power. It is the promise of power which corrupts. Limiting that power naturally limits corruption.

Update: Reason magazine chimes in, calling the "conscience of Congress" "phony-baloney".

1 comment:

danq said...

Dammit, I knew I shouldn't have mailed in that reparations money! :)