THE RIGHT SIDE
BY BUDD SCHROEDER
JULY 21 2017
THE BIG PROBLEM IN AMERICA IS POLITICS AND BUREAUCRACIES
The disclaimer to this column is this. There are several good people in the legislatures and executive positions locally, state wide and in federal offices. That being said, consider the commentary to be the columnist's personal opinions based on news reports and experience. The object of the column is to point out the problems in our country can be pretty much blamed on politicians, bureaucracies and an apathetic public.
The first observation is that politics has little to do with good government. It is all about power and money. That is the overview. Some of those in power don't abuse it. They are in the minority. Just look at the scandals that have been publicized recently, starting with the news about former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.
According to the trial, in which a jury found him guilty. He was guilty of multiple examples of corruption involving millions of dollars and was sentenced to 12 years in prison for his crimes. He is still collecting a state funded pension of more than $90,000 a year and was able to keep the money in his war chest for reelection, although he will never be able to be elected again.
He never served a day in prison because he was able to hire top lawyers and the case was appealed. Due to a quirk of a recent SCOTUS decision on what is considered to be political corruption, the case was overturned and now we are waiting to see if he will be retried.
Of course, now Mr. Silver wants the taxpayers to pay the millions of dollars he is spending on legal fees. Many people have asked the question "why should the taxpayers be on the hook for his actions? What other occupation has this kind of perk? Hopefully, he won't get his legal bills paid for by us.
Think of the differences in the real world of justice. Let's say Joe Sixpack is accused of a crime. He is arrested and charged with a felony. He has to hire an attorney and pays a retainer of $25,000 to get competent representation. He also has to pay $100.000 bail money to stay out of prison while awaiting trial. He doesn't have that kind of cash so he needs a bail bond. That will cost him $10,000. Now, he also has a social problem.
The law says a person is innocent until proven guilty, but the press and society in general will read the reports and the electronic media. Newspapers may blast his story on the front page. His reputation is ruined and it affects his small business or his job if he works for someone. it is very stressing.
He goes to trial and is found to be not guilty, but he leaves the court a free man who dropped a minimum of $35,000 for the bond and the lawyer. His business may have suffered or possibly he lost his job. He has been severely damaged. Who will pay for those expenses? Easy answer. He will.
Those in the system will justify the results because he had a "fair trial." He was found to be not guilty of the crime, but how does he recover from the loss of money and reputation? What would those in the legal profession and legal process say to justify that? Probably, "He got due process. That's the way the system works." The bureaucrats and lawmakers are off the hook. Life can be tough.
There is an old saying: "If you are going to sin, sin against God, not the bureaucracy. God will forgive. The bureaucracy won't." It is usually true. Once in a while, a person can "beat city hall." However, those in the bureaucracy can still make life miserable for the person who did it.
It is possible to beat one bureaucracy and suddenly find that the IRS may suddenly call for an audit. Decades ago this happened to the National Rifle Association who was causing the government a great deal of inconvenience with their pesky insistence that the Second Amendment meant what it said.
They kept winning battles and causing bad press on certain governmental agencies and the government struck back. It went through an extensive audit that cost NRA hundreds of thousands of dollars to provide the access to the necessary files and people to provide the information required by the IRS.
After months of the IRS intrusion and nit picking the NRA came out with a clean bill of health. It proved that they were doing everything right according to the IRS rules. Still, the bureaucrats got their revenge by giving the NRA "due process." What a country!
This is just the tip of the iceberg. The government and the bureaucracies provide much grist for the columnist's grill. This is a column, not a book, so the mill will always have enough to grind. Stay tuned. More fun on the way, if we don't get a bureaucratic squashing. They can be very vindictive and vicious,
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