Corruption and real life - The Reality-Based Community

After eight years of the most corrupt Administration since Harding, corruption ought to be a natural issue for the Democrats this year. And it’s still possible that a string of Abramoff-related indictments of Congressfolk will bring it into prominence. So far, though, the public doesn’t seem to think that the Republicans are more corrupt than the Democrats, or that corruption is something that affects day-to-day life. (I think it has been a mistake for Democrats to ignore corruption in Iraq as an important aspect of the Iraq issue.)

One of Barack Obama’s new TV spots in Pennsylvania starts to make the connection in what I think is the right way.

The Medicare prescription drug coverage bill explicitly forbids Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices. The chair of the House committee that wrote that law quit Congress two months later to take a $2 million-a-year job lobbying for Big Pharma. Suddenly “reducing lobbyist influence” isn’t some vague wine-track goo-goo issue; it’s about Grandma’s heart medicine. Well done.

Author: Mark Kleiman

Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out. Books: Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken) When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993) Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989) UCLA Homepage Curriculum Vitae Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com View all posts by Mark Kleiman