How to End Political Corruption Once-and-for All

Murray Sabrin

Allegations, investigations, indictments, convictions. New Jersey politics has become all too familiar. Of course, not all state legislators or local officials are ethically challenged. However, the indictment of the once powerful state senator Wayne Bryant who is alleged to have had a no show job at UMDNJ while he was head of the appropriations committee where he was able to steer taxpayers’ money to the university highlights what is wrong with government—all government.

Here in Bergen County Senator Joseph Conigilio, a retired plumber, had a $5,000 month consulting gig with Hackensack University Medical Center and was able to obtain substantial grants for HUMC. Any coincidence? The investigators are on the case.

As long as the State of New Jersey spends tens of billions per year ($33 billion is next year’s projected budget), untold nonprofit organizations and institutions, local governments and other interests will line up at the Trenton trough to obtain some of the spoils of the government’s plunder. The plunder of the public will continue because enough people have accepted the principle that government exists to provide them with economic security, health care, education and other benefits. In short, the welfare state is embraced by a majority of voters across the political spectrum, and, of course, most of the New Jersey’s editorial writers and commentators.

And when the system produces a Wayne Bryant and other alleged and convicted corrupt individuals, they are just shocked, shocked that the high and mighty are ripping off the public.

In the 2005 gubernatorial campaign Jon Corzine downplayed his welfare statism and positioned himself as a financial savvy, anti-establishment, fiscally responsibly, business-friendly candidate. And he won easily. As Corzine stated in his budget address he wants to spend more money, but the State of New Jersey is bankrupt. Not legally, but New Jersey is a financial basket case, and it will get worse before it gets better. More about the state’s economy is future columns.

In the meantime, to end political corruption in New Jersey, we do not need more commissions, ethics panels, breast beating, and other ineffective measures. We need to downsize state, county and local governments. We need to have less of the public’s money in government and more money controlled by the people who earn the money in the first place. In short, we need more liberty.

Every activity, program, and initiative of government should be provided by individuals, families, local, regional or national nonprofit organizations. For example, the greatest expense of state government is the nearly $11 billion that is distributed to local school districts. There is absolutely no reason state government should be funding education, including higher education. All services, including healthcare, must be devolved from the state to nonprofit institutions. That does not mean that taxpayers will be forced to pay for any of these institutions.

In polls, the public claims that it supports funding for Abbott school districts; the public claims that it supports healthcare subsidies for low-income seniors; the public claims it supports higher education subsidies; the public claims it supports social services for disadvantaged youths and the disabled.

If the public say they support helping the less fortunate in the Garden State, the most effective way to do so is to contribute to the best nonprofit institutions in their communities. A restructuring of New Jersey’s state government would abolish both the state income and corporate income taxes, reduce the sales tax and reduce, if not eliminate, most other state taxes.

With the creation of a limited government regime in Trenton, legislators would need to meet only a couple days a week, preferably on the weekend. We would finally create a citizen legislature. Legislators would have to make a living like the rest of us, providing a valuable service to the public.

With limited government in Trenton, political corruption as we know it would end. There would be no taxpayers’ money to distribute, that is, redistribute from earners to others. In short, there would be nothing to “corrupt.” State government would be confined to a few activities--state police, road maintenance, etc. Simple things. Once government ventures into activities like education, healthcare, and social services, costs go though the roof and corruption explodes. That’s the irrefutable fact of life. Government spending increases costs, plunders taxpayers and creates corruption.

The evidence is all around us. Big government is corrupting.

Murray Sabrin, Ph.D., is professor of finance in the Anisfield School of Business, Ramapo College of New Jersey, where he is executive director of the Center for Business and Public Policy.