Every two years, America goes through a Kabuki dance on corruption in Washington DC. We listen to endless promises from politicians of both parties about how they’ll clean up the swamp in the nation’s capital, sometimes by replacing pols that have already demonstrated corrupt behavior, or in other cases by demonizing lobbyists and “special interest groups”. Occasionally, we’re stupid enough to believe them — and then act as shocked as Captain Louis Renault when we discover they didn’t really mean it.

Dan Mitchell from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity explains why corruption thrives on Capitol Hill in his latest video:

In other words, as long as we keep aggregating so much of our money in one spot, corrupt people will flock there like seagulls on a garbage scow.  What’s more, we’re the ones providing the incentive.  We demand federal action, we elect people for bringing home the bacon, and then we sit in dazed wonder when corruption ensues from having trillions of dollars up in the air in one place for people to grab.

Here are some hard truths to life:

• Want to lose weight?  Eat less and exercise more.
• Want to have more cash?  Work harder and spend less.
• Want to end corruption in Washington DC?  Cut the budget and the size of government.

Few people really want to hear those truths.  They want magic pills for all of their concerns instead of acting out of common sense.  If we send less of our money to DC and move responsibilities back to the states and local communities, we won’t have to worry about whether we get our fair share back from DC.  Instead, we can use our own money to solve our own problems without hiring lobbyists to get it back, and we can address our own issues in the manner we like.

Our founding fathers knew all of this.  We’ve forgotten it in the vain attempt to find magic pills in a swamp.