The United States Is a Corrupt Nation

As a state lawmaker in Kansas, I learned the hard way that Washington, D.C. isn’t the only “swamp” in American politics. At almost every level, American government has grown so large and all-encompassing that its purpose, and therefore its process, has been corrupted.Consider the recent legislation to provide healthcare to veterans exposed to toxic burn pits. Instead of simply appropriating the necessary funding and scoring an easy bipartisan victory that keeps our nation’s promise to care for its veterans, Senate Democrats included a budgetary gimmick that allows for hundreds of billions of dollars in new, unrelated spending by moving $400 billion from the discretionary to the mandatory side of the ledger.Under Senate rules, this maneuver frees up that much room for new spending before Congress hit budgetary caps. When Republicans led by Sen. Pat Toomey objected, Democrats tried to portray them as being hostile to health care for veterans. This sort of thing happens all the time in government.In 1994, I became Chairman of the Taxation Committee in the Kansas House of Representatives and led a successful multi-year effort to reduce taxes on businesses, families, and individuals. I now wish I had taken a very different approach.My strategy was to obtain sufficient votes to overcome a reluctant governor, and I cobbled together tax reduction on any issue which had sufficient votes. I wanted to reduce the overall size of government and since no one had the discipline to directly cut a budget, I wanted to force cuts by reducing the revenue stream.I failed to consider how my efforts, through targeted tax cuts, insteadstrengthenedgovernment power, removing that power from individuals and families. I was right to …