Britt Combs: Madoff no worse than Washington

Several weeks ago in this space, we learned that Washington would avoid any meaningful action to clean up the financial meltdown and looming depression, and would instead chose to placate angry but uncomprehending voters by offering a few chosen sacrificial lambs chosen from Wall Street. We also learned that Washington would not alter their own behavior in any way. It is my pleasure to report that those predictions have been utterly fulfilled. Long live Combs.
It is the easiest thing in the world to demonize executives and businessmen: they have all the characteristic marks of bastards. They make more money that we do, they are contracted rather than at will workers, and they are the ones who send out the notices that we have been "furloughed" (a miraculous business device whereby employees can be laid off without having to pay them unemployment benefits). And they make more money that we do.
Of course, every one of those characteristics also apply to congressmen and presidents – none of them have ever struck a lick neither – but they have one massive, all-conquering advantage over executives; they have an army of reporters and celebrity spokes models (Michael Moore, Rush Limbaugh, George Clooney, Susan Sarandon, etc.) ready to repeat any talking point they care to fax out ad nauseum.
But businessmen have to pay to defend themselves. It's expensive and disreputable. And once a businessman gets into a scrape with the law, the government usually freezes – or even seizes – his assets, making a high level PR campaign pretty difficult.
So here comes the parade of sacrificial scapegoats like Bernie Madoff. He was expected to plead guilty this week to operating what investigators have called "the largest Ponzi scheme in history."
Of course the investigators -- federal employees -- have omitted the federal budget from their reckoning. Fifty billion dollars and some 14,000 victims, the alleged results of Madoff's operation, is nothing compared to the profits and victims of the federals. Gee whiz, they do a bigger operation than that before staff meeting each day on Capitol Hill.
What's truly ecstatically funny about Madoff is, it turns out, the federals were tipped off to his operation years ago. But see? There's nothing particularly unusual about a Ponzi scheme in the minds of Washington types. They didn't get upset about it until they suddenly needed to ruin a high-profile businessman for the sake of good publicity.
Dishonest financial management is not only considered normal in Washington, the city was pretty much founded on ripping people off. It's called The Great Hamiltonian Tradition. Just as Madoff used new investments to create the illusion of profits, letting the debts pile up on the back end, so the federals use revenues and credit to create the illusion of solvency, giving the people a tiny taste of sugar now in exchange for absolute ruin later. The big star of that this week is Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, who defended and even boasted about his successful earmarking on television Sunday.
Spending money we don't have and driving each and every one of us to utter financial ruin is considered part of the job in Washington. It's a measure of success. "The people of Alabama elected me to represent their interests in Washington," he said, "and I am willing to defend any funding or project I have secured for Alabama." In other words the people of Alabama want the government to drive them even deeper into debt. They want a few freebies now and don't give a flip about the consequences, even if those consequences include starvation, disease, homelessness or war. (I'm not exaggerating, folks. Those are, historically, the lot of nations that find themselves in economic collapse.)
Shelby makes a good point. He and other habitually dishonest people are sent to Washington specifically because that is what the voters want. It's what they like. It's why honest men are rare in the government and why they are routinely laughed off the stage when they make token protest runs for the White House. It's why men like Shelby (and virtually all of his colleagues) can openly boast about financial mismanagement and felonious accounting practices; the voters like it.
That's fine, friends. Party on. But let's hear no more about how upset we all are, how shocked! shocked! to find that we're broke. We're not fooling anybody and it makes us sound pathetic.