Insider reveals sickening reason it's so difficult to 'drain the
swamp'
A
GOP congressman is detailing why it’s so difficult to bring about meaningful
conservative reforms in Washington and how even Republicans are quickly
conditioned to go along to get along, a practice he says is driving up the debt
and deeply eroding confidence in Washington.
U.S.
Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., is beginning his second term in the House of
Representatives, but his first two years in Congress provided enough fodder for
his new book, “Drain the Swamp: How Washington Corruption is Worse Than
You Think.”
Buck
narrowly lost the 2010 U.S. Senate race in Colorado. Four years later, he
easily won a seat in the House after incumbent Cory Gardner embarked on a
successful U.S. Senate bid.
Already
convinced Washington was broken, it didn’t take long for Buck to discover it
was far worse than he realized.
“What
surprised me was learning the specifics of the corruption, learning the details
and how the establishment and leadership uses certain influences to try to
create discipline and order to a certain extent but to also make sure that the
special-interest groups are taken care of,” Buck said in an interview with
WND and Radio America.
One
of the first big surprises was the pressure put on all members to fund-raise on
behalf of the National Republican Congressional Committee, which is tasked with
winning House races. Buck said all members are obligated to raise money,
and those on lucrative committees are tasked with raising even more.
The
most high-profile committees include Appropriations, Ways and Means,
Energy and Commerce, Rules and Financial Services.
“We
have dues, and if you’re on an ‘A’ committee, your dues are higher than if
you’re on a ‘B’ committee. By higher, I mean $450,000 this year for being on an
‘A’ committee,” Buck said.
For
members to reach that bar, they must grovel to special interests.
“They
are reached by approaching special interest groups and asking for money,” Buck
said. “The challenge is, those groups expect something in return. So there is a
quid pro quo. There is a system in place. You are required to pay dues, and you
are required to raise money. Part of that is going to be being influenced by
people that you may not agree with.”
Listen
to the WND/Radio America interview with Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo.:
Ken Buck:
Congress devoured by dark, 'corrupting influence'
And
as the parties try to placate their special-interest donors, spending keeps
rising and debt keeps increasing. Buck said leadership, in turn, tries to
protect members from having to cast controversial or unpopular votes.
“The
long-term effect is that members of Congress are reluctant to take tough votes,
and they are not reluctant to add more debt to our national balance sheet,”
Buck said.
In
addition to raising money, members are also expected to toe the line in backing
the leadership’s agenda. “Drain the Swamp” is filled with first and second-hand
accounts of former House Speaker John Boehner forcefully demanding members vote
a certain way, punishing them for voting against the his wishes by stripping
committee assignments and congressional travel opportunities, and berating members
in front of their colleagues.
Other
GOP figures, all of whom are named in the book, are called out for refusing to
allow members to see the text of what they were voting on in Appropriations
Committee hearings or for excoriating colleagues for voting against the wishes
of Chairman Hal Rogers.
Buck
said it’s easy to be convinced to go with the flow in Washington, and that’s
why he says electing men and women of strong character is critical.
“Our
Founding Fathers created a system of government that really depends on a moral
people and principled elected officials. A lot of the individuals coming to
D.C. are very well meaning and principled when they get to D.C,” Buck said.
“I
think there is a corrupting influence in the swamp. Ultimately, I think most
people who are members of Congress start to compromise their values and start
to figure out how they can get re-elected and avoid taking tough votes. That’s
really the central issue in what’s corrupting the system.”
Buck
is very tough on Boehner in the book, but he said current House Speaker Paul
Ryan runs a much better process.
“Paul
Ryan is a policy wonk. He is a very bright individual,” Buck said. “He can talk
policy with anybody and does his best to convince people through good policy
rather than through threats and intimidation or any kind of benefits. The
policy and the politics are much more separated with Paul Ryan than they were
with John Boehner.”
But
he notes Ryan has some key tests to pass in this Congress.
“We’ll
see soon with the health-care initiative, and other initiatives on tax reform
and immigration, whether Paul is going to be able to bring a coalition together
to get that job done,” Buck said.
And
how can the culture of Congress be turned around?
“I
think we get out of this with good, principled people,” Buck said. “I think we
get out of this with Americans reading this book, understanding what is going
on in D.C. in some detail and exercising and exerting influence from the
outside to make sure that we reform.
“We
need to make sure that the pay-to-play system is ruled unethical by the Ethics
Committee and that it stops. I think there’s a lot of reforms that we can enact
inside Congress. I think we also need to work from the outside to pass
important measures like a balanced budget amendment,” he said.
One
of Buck’s greatest concerns is the nation’s $20 trillion in official debt,
especially with entitlements and unfunded liabilities, set to explode over the
next decade. He suggests one of the most irresponsible patterns in Congress is
to pass government funding through emergency omnibus measures, rather than
through the individual appropriations bills.
Buck
said there hasn’t been regular order on appropriations since 1994.
“When
we don’t go through regular order and pass 12 appropriations bills that are
discussed on the floor and open for amendment, we end up with a last-minute
crisis-management situation where we’re told we have to keep government open,”
Buck said.
“A
lot of spending programs are put into the omnibus bill that members don’t know
about because we have very little time to review that bill, and it costs
taxpayers more money,” he said.
Buck
said he wrote the book to get Americans even more motivated to clean up politics.
“I’d
like to make sure people understand that D.C. is broken and that it is each
American’s responsibility and to stand up and take action,” he said. “I hope it
motivates people to be involved in the system.”
