Corruption, Corruption

Each day there are articles that discuss the corruption that is prevalent in our government.  Yesterday I read an article by Matt Taibi in the current Rolling Stone.  In this article he tells of whistle blowers who have given Senate and House committees evidence of the corruption in the Securities and Exchange Commission.  It seems that this is a revolving door between Wall Street and the SEC.  The SEC is being accused of destroying records of cases that have had a preliminary investigation.  This has been going on since 1993.  It also portrays an agency that has covered up crimes on Wall Street much to the detriment of our country.
I consider Matt Taibi to be a very good investigative reporter,  I recommend that you all read his article at http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/is-the-sec-covering-up-wall-street-crimes-20110817.  It is eye-opening but not particularly surprising since corruption in our government seems pervasive.
Then on the same day there was an article on the staff of Darrell Issa's.  He is the Republican chair of the House Oversight Committee.  This article from think Progress details one of his staff members who was a vice president at Goldman Sachs.  He left Goldman Sachs and changed his name and then became a member of Issa's staff.  Here is this quote from Think Progress.

"ThinkProgress:
Has Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) turned the House Oversight Committee into a bank lobbying firm with the power to subpoena and pressure government regulators? ThinkProgress has found that a Goldman Sachs vice president changed his name, then quietly went to work for Issa to coordinate his effort to thwart regulations that affect Goldman Sachs’ bottom line."
To read the whole article go to http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/08/18/298485/exclusive-goldman-sachs-vp-changed-his-name-now-advances-goldman-lobbying-interests-as-a-top-staffer-to-darrell-issa/
This type of corruption which, I believe, exists throughout both parties and all agencies of the government is abhorrent to me and I hope to all of us.  It makes me wonder if there is an honest person in Washington.
Then there is the issue of back taxes owed by federal employees.  They owe billions in back taxes.  If you or I were in that situation we would probably be in jail by now or at the very least being harassed by the IRS.  What allows them to get away with this type of fraud?
We need to keep up the pressure on our elected officials to make sure that these things are cleaned up.  It seems like a hopeless cause but we must prevail.