How corrupt is today's U.S. federal government?

I said "slightly corrupt" for comparative reasons. There's no doubt that there's a lot of corruption in our government in absolute terms. But the modern civil service system reduces corruption enormously, compared to old systems in which bribery was pretty much the order of the day. Compared to how things were 100 years ago (much less 200 or 300), things are squeaky clean.

 

I think a lot of this has to do with what we consider corruption. I think in some ways the government is very corrupt in terms of favoritism and insiders working connections. In terms of what is usually thought of as corruption of paying off bureacrats I don't think it is very.

 

Extremely corrupt when taken as a whole.

When examining by individual I would say hard to know unless you know.

I know my congressman personally. He is not corrupt. But from what he has told me that list is a very short list.

Also the sum of the parts is what I think is very corrupt.

There are alot of idealistic well meaning people in government that have no idea how deep the rabbit hole is.

Agendas at the highest places are rarely known very far down the line.

 

aren't we one of the least corrupt democracies around? i need to find the materials from my comparative govt course but i remember us being one of the least corrupt governments around.

 

And democracies are usually less corrupt than other forms of government. The Soviets had worse corruption, by far, than we did. Everyone thinks their government is corrupt. Ours is better than most...

 

If by definition corruption is how many bribes govt. officials take.

We are one of the least currupt govts.

If you can expand the definition-
corrupt- to become tainted, bad in morals and actions.

Another dictionary- Marked by immorality and perversion; depraved.

Lies, deception, hypocrisy, manipulation, morally flawed, unprincipled, unethical, selfish and self serving.

Here's another question- Is today's U.S. federal government just a reflection of how corrupt our society has become?

 

Move to Canada already.

 

No place to hide.

And I'm not leaving until we win three championships with TMac.

 

Wouldn't we have some crazy popular migration patterns if everyone folllowed this advice?

 

How would one make the States any better from Canada?

 

I'm sure there is corruption, but compared to how it used to be, or compared to other countries, I think we are pretty good.

Go to Mexico to get a good idea of how blatant and expected corruption can be.

 

A long rant by Mark Winegardner from "The Godfather Returns"

Remember "Remember the Maine"? All a big lie concocted so the United States could go to war under false pretenses and the men in charge could make their rich friends richer (including the newspaper moguls who self-servingly spread the lie in the first place).

The government, on the other hand, wages nonstop war on the average Joe, and the suckers just eat their bread, go to their circuses, and keep on pretending they live in a democracy -- a lie so cherished they can't grasp the self-evident, that America is run entirely by backroom deals involving the rich. In almost every election, the richer candidate defeats the poorer candidate. When the poorer candidate wins, it's usually because he's agreed to be a stooge for people richer than the ones who backed his opponent. Go ahead, try voting the bastards out. See what happens.

Hagen doubted that the world had ever seen a better racket than the American government. It's hard to sue the government. It's hard to sue the government, for example, and even if you win, so what? Here's a million bucks. Then they raise taxes two million. Plus, with businesses, someone somewhere has to buy their crummy product. What are people supposed to do about the government? It's yours, it's you, you're stuck with it, end of story.

 

In countries like China, India, Rusia, etc... Taking bribes is often the only ways a government officials can become rich. In this country, the political system is setup so that politicans do not have to take any bribes to get rich. If you serve in government, you can in a few years transfer into the private sector and get some cush board of the director, advisor type jobs. On top of that the whole election process is just like one big bribe factory.

In the end many government officials are just as heavily influenced in many casesby special interests as officials in the other countries.

 

every country has a corrupt government....so its pointless ask a question where the answer is the same for every situation.... as long as you hava a system which hides or is able to stop the more obvious loopholes are successful systems.... and therefore, the U.S has one of the better systems in the world...

Pakistan and Nigeria are the top two worst corrupt countries....

i heard that the Paki woman prez (i think her name is Bhutto) she had bought a 17million dollar mansion in europe... a very educated woman who screwed a country loyally.... i feel for whoever pays taxes in that country..