ABSCAM AND COMPETITIVE CORRUPTION

ABSCAM AND COMPETITIVE CORRUPTION. The battle against corruption of legislators is already over, and everybody on both sides of the aisle knows it. One example is that Congressman Murtha was nominated for a position in House leadership and received a number of votes. In a Congress which had high standards, Congressman Murtha would have been too radioactive to get any votes because of his role in the Abscam investigation of twenty-five years ago. For my children, I should explain that Abscam was sting operated by the FBI that featured an informant posing as an Arab seeking to bribe Congressmen. Meetings were taped and a Senator and a Congressman were caught. The most sickening thing about the tapes for me was the salesmanship by some of the bribe seekers who argued that their state delegation could deliver better than other state delegations. (New Jersey can do more for you than Pennsylvania….) In that connection, I have seen praised a book by Susan Rose-Ackerman that asks the economist’s question: not, why are there bribes in American government, but rather, why are the bribes so small? The answer she gives apparently is that competition drives the amount of the bribes down.