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October
17
2022

Federal Regulatory Corruption
Jacob Hornberger

When America’s free-market system got converted to a welfare-state, regulated-economy system, the idea was that the federal government would operate as a parent taking care of his adult-children. The free market system — that is, a system free of government control and regulation — was considered to be too dangerous for American child-adults. Federal regulators would keep them safe and secure. 

Needless to say, these federal regulators aren’t willing to work for free. They demand and receive very generous salaries, all of which are paid out of income taxes that are forcibly collected from the American people by the IRS, one of the most feared and powerful agencies in U.S. history. 

And now, thanks to an article that just appeared in the Wall Street Journal, we learn that large numbers of federal bureaucrats are adding to their income by investing in companies that their agencies regulate. How’s that for a very severe case of federal corruption? Why do the name Martha Stewart and the term “hypocrisy” come to mind? 

According to the Journal’s article, which is entitled “Federal Officials Trade Stock in Companies Their Agencies Oversee,” “Hidden records show thousands of senior executive branch employees owned shares of companies whose fates were directly affected by their employers’ actions, a Wall Street Journal investigation found.” The article states:

More than 2,600 officials at agencies from the Commerce Department to the Treasury Department, during both Republican and Democratic administrations, disclosed stock investments in companies while those same companies were lobbying their agencies for favorable policies. That amounts to more than one in five senior federal employees across 50 federal agencies reviewed by the Journal.

So, not only are these regulatory bureaucrats eating out our substance with their tens of thousands of rules and regulations and taxation, they are also financially profiting from their regulatory corruption. 

According to the Journal, 

A top official at the Environmental Protection Agency reported purchases of oil and gas stocks. The Food and Drug Administration improperly let an official own dozens of food and drug stocks on its no-buy list. A Defense Department official bought stock in a defense company five times before it won new business from the Pentagon.

Our American ancestors would never have put up with this type of thing, which is precisely why they didn’t permit income taxation or a regulated economy for more than 100 years. 

Why do Americans today put up with it? At the very least, today’s child-adults, who are characterized by passivity, submissiveness, deferential mindsets, and welfare-dole dependency, should file a complaint with Child Services for child-adult abuse at the hands of their federal daddy.

Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and received his B.A. in economics from Virginia Military Institute and his law degree from the University of Texas. He was a trial attorney for twelve years in Texas. He also was an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught law and economics. In 1987, Mr. Hornberger left the practice of law to become director of programs at the Foundation for Economic Education. He has advanced freedom and free markets on talk-radio stations all across the country as well as on Fox News’ Neil Cavuto and Greta van Susteren shows and he appeared as a regular commentator on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s show Freedom Watch. View these interviews at LewRockwell.com and from Full Context. Send him email.

 

www.fff.org