If our eternal rounds of exposure and calumny tear down that trust, and make government out to be a cesspool, if our remedies make public service so unattractive and distasteful as to lose the capacity to recruit new and good people to government, we have lost the game. We have spent so much time accusing and finger pointing and exposing that we forget why we formed a government in the first place. But if we pursue some of the new ethics proposals, we are pandering to public perception rather than seeking a real reform goal. For example, we already require too many disclosure forms. Every year, all of our senior officials spend countless hours preparing financial disclosure forms.
Candidates file extensive reports on how they raise and spend their campaign money.
The reports are so complicated that most observers can't understand what they are observing. The forms serve as wonderful traps for the unwary, and give the political opposition good stuff to use for negative campaigning. We have lobbying laws on the books that do precious little to expose the difference between legitimate lobbying and the improper use of money and favors to gain a legislative end. We are considering new proposals that will do nothing to break the link between lobbying and money. But there will be more forms to fill out, more trees will be cut down to provide the paper.