The No. 1 earmarks guy

The following news article by Herbert A. Sample of the Associated Press ran in the 11/9/09 edition of the Honolulu Star Bulletin:

http://www.starbulletin.com/news/20091109_inouyes_earmarks_go_to_his_donors.html

The following quote is a very gentle attempt to describe our current political situation:

• "I think what that shows you is, at the very least, there's the appearance of a quid pro quo between campaign contributions and then how decisions are made to allocate taxpayer resources," said Mandy Smithberger, of the Project on Government Oversight, a nonpartisan watchdog group in Washington, D.C.
  

The blatant political corruption that was revealed by the investigation of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was a national news story. Most who followed that story reassured themselves by rationalizing that corruption on that scale was unusual and certainly not part of their state or local politics. Things like that only happen else ware.

The above news story explains “pay to play” on a national scale. Here you have an eight term US senator bragging that "I'm the No. 1 earmarks guy in the U.S. Congress."

Senator Inouye is not beholden to his constituents, only to his large campaign contributors. The root of this problem is the power of incumbency. 95% of federal officeholders are reelected. This removes any real need to represent the will of the citizens.