GSA Scandal, P. Diddy and Football Scholarships

I didn’t write a thing about the GSA scandal when it first surfaced.  I like to see where the dust is going to settle on an issue before laying in to them with a large broom.  I also know that the press loves to write in excess about these things, correcting as they go along.  The first story will have a large measure of truth, but the follow up stories, as one news service after another tries to, “scoop” the other, will be based on third and fourth generation hearsay.  

            Every time I hear someone tout the concept of government run health care or the need for more governmental control of J. P. Morgan or other lions of the business sector  I want to point to the GSA and say, “Yup, we need another thick slice of that on our plates!”  If the government can’t keep a watch on the agencies they themselves create, what makes people think they can accurately or fairly regulate the entities created by the market place?  The free market is a relentless regulator; the government is just the opposite.  The government will never feel the need to regulate itself.  They aren’t playing with their own money, so why care?  Besides, regulation means saying, “no” to some people whom the government wants to keep happy with a perpetual “yes.”  

            Let’s not be overly impressed by the righteous indignation of the Congressional committees investigating GSA.  Congress is traditionally long on umbrage but short on action.  If Congress actually wanted an end GSA’s kind of unethical behavior they would do two things.  First, they would stop creating and funding so many governmental entities.  Second, they would truly regulate the agencies for which they feel an unremitting need.   Neither of these things is going to happen with a government that is dedicated to the idea that no problem is too small to solve.   Take, for example, the first piece of legislation to come out of this GSA mess.  Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri) has introduced a piece of pap designed to look like tough love when it is really just Democratic claptrap.  It calls for approval from agency heads for conferences exceeding $200,000 and no bonuses for people under investigation.  What about no conferences over $200,000 and no bonuses at all?  The same Democrats that are in favor of bonuses for public employees (part of their anointed fold) heap scorn on private sector bonuses.  While private companies are derided for spending money on business trips and private jets, the public sector gets a green card for both.

But there is a significant reason for this difference, and, oddly, it is summed up in a football scholarship for the son of a multi-millionaire who resides solidly within the Hollywood-Democratic camp.   P. Diddy, a rapper who has made himself wealthy with music (???) demonizing police and objectifying women, could easily afford to send his son to college.  Instead, the young man received a $54,000 athletic scholarship to UCLA.  But Mr. Diddy is also a Democrat so you won’t hear a word of complaint about it.  If Mitt Romney’s son got the same scholarship there would be an unending stream of vitriol about the rich getting unneeded breaks.  There might even be some question about whether or not the Republican’s son had really earned the scholarship.  Whether it is something as big as GSA or as small as a scholarship, the Democrats in Congress are not worried about justice; they are worried about their constituency.  

Look for the real agenda and keep the faith.