Rag Hand

Ethics Committees: Proving congress has a sense of humor.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The House ethics committee on Friday cleared seven lawmakers of improperly or illegally considering campaign contributions when steering earmarks amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars in mostly no-bid contracts to some 40 companies.

In a 305-page report, the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct said its nine-month investigation revealed a widespread perception among corporations and lobbyists that campaign contributions provided enhanced access to lawmakers or a greater chance of getting earmarks.

In reality, members of Congress “by and large, take great care to separate their official and campaign functions, particularly with respect to earmark requests,” it said in a unanimous decision.

Taxpayers for Common Sense and other watchdog groups criticized the ethics committee’s decision to clear the lawmakers, but said it was not surprising.

Members of the ethics committee themselves obtained $200 million in earmarks either by themselves or with other lawmakers, Taxpayers said on its web site.

When congress “forced” representatives to put their name on earmarks -saying that it would decrease earmarks-, they knew full well that earmarks would become something politicians could openly brag about.

The “Ethics panel” found no wrongdoing. Maybe that is because they are as guilty as the people they “investigated.”

The politicians we elect have become so used to doing favors for “friends,” who in turn contribute to the campaigns to make sure that their friends can stay in office so they can do more favors, that they are apparently oblivious to what appears to the rest of us to be rampant corruption.

People adapt to their environment, and in any political situation doing favors for golfing buddies by folding pork into an unrelated bill is the norm, and our elected representatives see nothing wrong with this, therefore there is no ethics violation, because that’s just the way things work around there.

Crooked politician is redundant.