Special jails for the pork scammers

THE SARO-for-Cash exchange between the fake Napoles-run NGOs and the lawmakers from both chambers of Congress was unprecedented in the annals of congressional sleaze. Previously, the most brazen form of congressional corruption was using pork to fund cheap books and near-to- useless “fertilizer”to get the highest commissions possible. But all SAROs, take note, were in exchange for something. There were “deliverables.”

Until the SARO-for-Cash, with its unprecedented zero delivery, congressional corruption had been public knowledge but accepted as a fact of life. We have had, from time immemorial, a historically- tainted Congress. Even the “innovation”in pork allocation—that a percentage goes to a “soft part” that can be leveraged for higher commissions was tolerated. Ingrained in the pork, here and elsewhere, are varying shades and degrees of corruption. Even in developed economies, earmarks have the familiar ring of building “bridges to nowhere.” Or farm earmarks getting tacked into urban transportation legislation.