Corruption In The United States - Essay Example

? Corruption in the United s Most observers that the past decade identified corruption as a costly diversion of scarce resources and an impediment to development effectiveness. Corruption is a symptom of deepened problems in the way political leadership administers crucial financial functions of a state. The pervasiveness and extent of fraud, bribery, illegal patronage, and stealing from taxpayers have made state national leaders of corruption. The notorious reputation of some Americans is providing fodder for scores of late night talk show hosts and comedians. However, corruption is a serious problem that hurts all American citizens who happen to put their trust and tax dollars in the palms of their political leaders who end up abusing their given power (Glaser and Goldin 9-13). Cognitively, in order to deal with this rising pandemic, some organizations identified a range of policies for improving public administration including reforms of public expenditure management, auditing functions, procurement procedures, and rules governing conflicts of interests. This volume will give a closer outlook of the extent of corruption in the US and give a number of recommendations. Today, international corruption measures rand the United Sates of America among the lowest 10 percent of countries worldwide whereby to most American citizens, corruption is something that takes place to those people who are less fortunate in poor nations and transition economies. Nevertheless, their reputation as an untarnished republic is a new phenomenon. Conventional histories of the nineteenth- and early twentieth century in America, depict its corrupt fundamentals as similar and at sometimes equal to these present in today’s modern transition economies and developing regions. Nineteenth century urban governments of America vastly over paid for basic activities and services like construction and street cleaning in exchange for favors garnered by elected officials. In addition, the government gave away services meant for public for healthy bribery and nominal fees (Glaser and Goldin 15). Since corruption is illegal and embarrassing, most of its participants tend to hide it. There are few things determining corruption in the United Sates. The economic approach to corruption in the US starts with the costs and benefits facing corrupt potential public offices. As put across, corruption is actually the use of public office or power for personal gains. In American, the most rampant determinant of corruption is the ability of a public official to increase someone’s private wealth by paying that person using money from the public purse. In extreme cases, this someone could be just the public official himself. Additionally, the other means by which public officials create wealth for themselves is through transfer of government property to private persons for their own benefit (Williams and Kenneth 6-8). For instance, the transfer of government land to traction companies in the nineteenth century is a popular form of corruption. Furthermore, the other primary form of corruption is the creation of private wealth through manipulation of office power or enforcements of legal rulings in favor of personal gains. Some recent data collected from different states in the US reveal that, the rising corporate agriculture to dominate the economies of rural and farm communities is one of the most devastating events of corruption in this country’s history. The data put across that, sixty years ago, there were over six million farms dotted across the landscape of America. Later, the number declined to only two million whereby the large numbers of these are small and medium sized operations. Surprisingly, the bulk of profits from corporate agriculture accrue to only a few hundred super farms. Few companies control most of these farms and there are increasing cases of vertical integration. These companies are flourishing and rural communities are suffering economically, socially, and environmentally due to concentration, merging, as well as vertical integration. Food processing employment opportunities are going to immigrants who are willing to work for meager wages under substandard working circumstances, while the tax base no longer can support good schools and necessary social services, and the community is no more able to sustain small businesses (Williams and Kenneth 12-15). With this respect, this paper makes a stern that, corruption is a serious problem and is mercilessly affecting people of walks in the United States of America. In order to curb this inflating pandemic in agriculture business, stakeholders in conjunction with the government through the American Farm Bureau Federation collaborated to form a self-proclaimed “voice of agriculture”. This voice is devoting most of its financial and political efforts in backing the wishes of corporate agriculture by considering all the parties involved and doing away with company dominance. Previously, this organization supported Freedom to Farm Act that ended the role of corrupt federal government in agriculture and allow free market sort out its winners and losers (John 8-12). This organization in conjunction with other non-profit organizations are putting measures that are ensuring close follow up of classical economic theory of agriculture whereby agriculture abundance should drive the price of food downwards and leading to increased demand. Moreover, the newest corruption conviction data given from the US Department of Justice reveal that Chicago metropolitan region is the most corrupt area in the country since 1976 followed by Connecticut then Illinois coming in third. The state of corruption in these states is devastating. For three decades now, reported cases of convicted governors due to corruption are rampant in Illinois. Within this period, four Illinois governors underwent conviction due to cases of corruption yet only seven men have sat in this office for this span of time. To begin with, having served from 1961 to 1968, Otto Kern left office to accept federal judgeship and the court convicted him of mail fraud, perjury, bribery, and income tax evasion in 1973. Dan Walker served from 1973 to 1977 where the court found him guilty of obtaining fraudulent loans for his business in 1987 after he left office. George Ryan served from 1999 to 2003 and pleaded guilty of racketeering, conspiracy and a number of other charges in 2006, the list goes on (Simpson 5-9). The most recent and famous case of corruption is the case of Rod Blagojevich who served from 2003 until his impeachment in 2009. The corrupt individual met his conviction in 2011 after trying to sell the United Sates Senate seat vacated by the current president of America, Barrack Hussein Obama. With this sense, the government, non-profit organizations, and businesses are attacking corruption from all angles by reinforcing a mix of prevention and curative measures along with public involvement and education (Genovese and Myers 135-38). This paper finds it worth recommending that, to pass these reforms together with their implementation require development of a broad coalition of support. Indeed, there is a possibility of building this coalition around a much more comprehensive reform program than existed in the past. The proposal by Governor Pat Quinn to allow Illinois and other states to adopt ethics reforms by referendum needs support and passing. Truthfully, the US needs reforms at all levels and within all units of government and should move forward vastly while the public support morale is still high due to the current conviction of Governor Rod. Works Cited Genovese, Michael and Myers Victoria. Corruption and American Politics. New York: Cambria Press, 2010. Pg 135-38. Glaser, Edward and Goldin, Claudia. Corruption and reform: Introduction. Retrieved from http://www.nber.org/chapters/c9976.pdf on April 8, 2012. Pg 9-13. John, Heilbrunn. Anti-corruption commissions. Panacea or real medicine to fight corruption? Retrieved from http://siteresources.worldbank.org/WBI/Resources/wbi37234Heilbrunn.pdf on April 8, 2012. Pg 8-12. Simpson, Dick et al. Chicago and Illinois, leading the in corruption, 2012. Retrieved from http://www.uic.edu/depts/pols/ChicagoPolitics/leadingthepack.pdf on April 8, 2012. Pg 5-9. Williams, Tad and Kenneth, John. The corruption of American agriculture. Retrieved from http://s242798577.onlinehome.us/media/TadFinal.pdf on April 8, 2012. Pg 12-15. Read More