http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Abramoff

Just one example from the link:

> Abramoff and his law firm were paid at least $6.7 million by the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) from 1995 to 2001, which made manufacture goods with the "Made in the USA" label but is not subject to U.S. labor and minimum wage laws.

What’s good about that one is it went on for years and all the politicians knew about it.

I think you are trying to make the point that money bought the all politicians. While that is somewhat true in some cases it isn't the full story.

I suspect if you dig deeper what you will find is that no one cared enough to fix the problem.

I'd note in particular that the bill designed to stop the abuses in CNMI was passed unanimously in the Senate, but then blocked by Tom DeLay in the house[1]. While is it easy to say that DeLay blocked the bill because of money, the truth is that DeLay is quite happy to block any bill that involves new labor laws.

Abramoff found someone who's politics already aligned with what he wanted to happen and then made sure that person saw it as something important enough to do something about it.

I'm not at all sure that is political corruption at all.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Abramoff_CNMI_scandal

(ie, Money is important, but it isn't the only thing)