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Aug

25

The Nearly Secret Cash Stash

August 25, 2005 |

When it comes to hubris, is the PA Legislature is testing the limits? Absolutely, the $135 million slush fund used by its members to cover all sorts of expenses — the one that is not allowed to have a full audit, by order of those who use it — is an example of what folks who have a sober understanding of the workings of politicians and government come to expect. That assessment generally includes:

  1. Those who go to government are no more noble than the average human.
  2. Those who succeed most at getting elected prove merely that they have learned how to say whatever it takes to get elected. They are experts at getting elected and nothing more.
  3. That government results are proof that saying whatever it takes to get elected does not translate into good policy
  4. Those who repeatedly succeed as politicians have, as one politician quoted by H.L. Mencken observed, “learned to rise above principle”.
  5. That it is human nature for people to be less responsible with money when it is not their own.
  6. That people will do whatever it takes to stay in power.
  7. Those who gravitate to government are not able to sell their ideas in the open market place, and therefore need to use the government to force people to pay for things they’d not pay for voluntarily


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