The business of American politics: Ted Cruz tells it like it is

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

/ POLITICS & AMERICA

“What the country needs is dirtier fingernails and cleaner minds”
– Will Rogers

Ted Cruz, Republican senator from Texas, has made an honest admission of dishonesty. In the Wall Street Journal, he warned CEOS opposed to Republican attempts to change voting regulations. No longer, he said, would Republicans look the other way when corporate bigwigs dodge taxes.

Republicans wouldn’t take corporate donations in exchange for “looking the other way”, Mr Cruz said. “We won’t look the other way on Coca-Cola’s $12 billion in back taxes owed. This time, when Major League Baseball lobbies to preserve its multibillion-dollar antitrust exception, we’ll say no thank you. This time, when Boeing asks for billions in corporate welfare, we’ll simply let the Export-Import Bank expire.”

It’s a remarkably explicit admission and Walter Shaub, former head of the Government Office of Ethics, recently helped explain the import of what we were hearing. Mr Shaub recently tweeted that this was probably the “most openly corrupt” message ever from the Senate.

https://twitter.com/waltshaub/status/1388889727202439171

“These crooks sell access,” he said, “Others have the sense not to admit it. This is why our republic is broken: Immoral politicians selling power we’ve entrusted to them like it’s theirs to sell.”

That is exactly right. Senator Cruz’s admission suggests that the power he and others are entrusted with is theirs to sell.

Well, it isn’t and it’s time they found out.