Our rat-infested politics

In the list of abuses of power by our government and its members, this doesn’t rank high for size—but it’s telling:

According to the Wall Street Journal, Congress members from both parties have been abusing their per diem—funds accorded them to cover travel expenses, including meals. When their expenses are picked up by other people, such as foreign government officials or U.S. ambassadors, they are expected to return the unused funds, which ultimately belong to you, the taxpayer.

In many cases, however, they don’t. Some spend the leftover cash on gifts or use it to cover their spouses’ travel expenses. Others merely put the extra money in their pocket. Not that the cash, which can add up to as much as $1,000, is exactly pocket change by most Americans’ reckoning. . . .

Among the most flagrant offenders are Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC), Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL), Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-AL), Rep. Solomon Ortiz (D-TX), former Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN), Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-AL), and Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-NC). In an ironic twist, Rep. Butterfield is—get ready for it—a member of the House ethics committee. . . .

Perhaps the cake taker among the above-named Congress members is Robert Aderholt, who claims he isn’t sure if he keeps the money because doesn’t retain receipts.

Again, the biggest division in our politics isn’t between left and right—it’s between “we the people” and our governing elite—and our biggest political challenge is reclaiming our government so that it will once again truly be “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” We on the Right don’t need to “take back our country” from the Left, just as they didn’t need to take it back from us—it’s the country of the whole political spectrum, and will be for as long as it endures. But we the people, conservatives and liberals alike, do have the right and the need to take it back from those who are not truly representative of us. The unlamented Mark Souder is on that list; is it too much to ask that the U. S. Representative from northeastern Indiana should be a man of Indiana, not of the Beltway?