Additionally, the U.S. Constitution does not really permit blanket restrictions on employment for individuals. Among other things, this ties in with the 13th Amendment that bans slavery and indentured servitude. You also have a free speech right to lobby.
In fact, the current restrictions are probably unconstitutional.
Anyway, these measures are treating a symptom. The real problem is that the federal government is vastly too large in size and scope. Reduce the power and programs run by the federal government, and radically simplify the tax code, and you'll dry up the opportunities for corruption.
And that would only treat the problem of government corruption while exacerbating issues of social inequality. I'm all for fiscal responsibility but the empirical evidence seems to suggest that cutting social services and public good projects leads to net harm for society as a whole (see: Texas.)
As a whole, I find the prevalence of libertarianism among tech types curious. As a whole they (we) are often rationalist and evidence-based in orientation but the libertarian position derives more from principle than empirical evidence -- the same charges many libertarians would level against religion-based politics.
So, I'm curious where it was implied that there would be no social services and/or public good projects unless they were undertaken at the federal level.
A possibility is to phase in benefits based on how long people have lived in a place (e.g. you get 10% of the max Pittsburgh city benefits for each year you've lived in Pittsburgh), but that would put a damper on labor mobility within the US, since people who moved around a lot would always end up with poor benefits (sort of like the old problem with non-portable pensions). And in any case the Supreme Court struck down Alaska's attempt to do that, so it isn't currently an option: http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/zobel.h...
If anything, I'd be more interested in going in the other direction in order to enhance intra-US mobility; it'd be nice if I didn't have to change health insurance just because I moved to a different state or got a new job, giving me the freedom to decouple my healthcare choices from other lifestyle choices.
For example, Conan's satirical RP ad http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-12-08/politics/3048...
As far as I know, blanket employment restrictions for individuals in the form of "will not do X for N years post-employment" have never been struck down under a U.S. constitutional rationale. Some states (such as California) ban or heavily restrict them, but federal law doesn't appear to.
No, more likely they'll just move to the state level. And it'll probably cost them less at that, since state officials are significantly less visible and will have less power.
Isn't this also a function of our federalized mindset? This country was designed to function almost exactly inverse to the way it works now -- the more local the representative, the more powerful he should be. It was set up this way to allow more influence from individuals and less influence from outside forces; when you have 3000 or 30,000 constituents, it's a lot easier to pay attention to individuals and to engage in meaningful discussion than when you have 3 million (or more) constituents.
If we fixed the system and put power back where it belonged, wouldn't the prominence follow the power? Wouldn't individual state-wide media outlets become more important than national media outlets? Wouldn't our state representatives become visible again as the primary movers and shakers?
The federal legislature was intended primarily to deal with international affairs, boring stuff like treaties and tariffs. We should keep that their only sphere of influence. At least then corruption would have to work 50 times over to take effect in every state, whereas now you can buy a handful of corrupt politicians and the whole country is stuck with the results.
Empirically that's not what happened: 19th-c local and state administrations were hugely corrupt, in bed with businessmen and power brokers (some local, some national) and largely unresponsive to their constituents. In fact that was some of the reason federalization was popular, to reduce the power of the local machines (and was also one of the reasons behind going to direct election of Senators). The 1950s-60s saw another wave, as the lawless Southern local governments and police forces had to be overridden by the national government.
I was in Jakarta recently and saw a diagram of the process to get an ID card. Very clear flow chart, going around in an infinite loop. The way out of this infinite loop, I am told, is to hire an agency to process your application. Of course we call that corruption, but when we pretty much require an immigration attorney in the US to navigate through bringing one's spouse or fiancee into the country, we call that professionalism. I think on one level, we have to accept that some level of corruption is inherent in human organization and it is a problem to be managed rather than eliminated.
http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2010/02/12/the-legacy-of-...
Also available as a $0.99 Kindle Single that acts as a small donation to Sunlight:
http://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Billy-Tauzin-House-PhRMA-ebook/...
Disclosure: I work for the Sunlight Foundation.
I wonder if the system would be less corrupt if the difference in pay/lifestyle from the top 1% to the top 0.1% were much less. That is, if incomes were taxed at a much higher rate. Going from a $200000 salary to a $2.5 million salary and keeping most of it is too much of an incentive for corruption.
I suspect that countries with the least amount of corruption have the least amount of income inequality.
I guess that means there are no elected congress-critters who are worth their salt eh?
The last two non-corporate-funded ones were Feingold and Grayson who were both defeated in 2010.
Our Congress is now fully corrupt.
It goes along with WANTING to be in a political position, if one did not want the money or the power trips then that one is likely also a nutjob of zealous flavor.
The flaw with this logic, is that the ideal politician does not want the job, this could make them incorrigible or careless. It also means almost nothing gets done by the incorrigible politicians (which I have to see as a good trait for any government) and poor quality work is done by the careless ones.
and also
"To summarize the summary, people are a problem."
Buddy Roemer on MSNBC's Morning Joe: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oMoAMnFczY
Then there's Lawrence Lessig. He's not a politician but he's also working to limit systemic political corruption.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._Federal_Elec...
The way its done is to push through favorable laws for a company with a wink and a nod, and then come back and work for the company as a consultant/lobbyist with a minimum 1 million dollar per year salary.
Billy Tauzin did this quite well with PhRMA (lobbying group for pharma companies). He headed up the committee which oversees drug companies and led the push to pass the Medicare Prescription Drug Bill which was quite favorable to drug companies. The bill among other things allows drug companies to set an arbitrary price for the drug without Medicare having the option to negotiate on prices.
As soon as the bill was passed he retired from Congress to lead PhRMA with a $2.5 million USD per year salary. Mission complete.