Friday, January 14, 2011
Prison term for Thomas DeLay
From The Hindu
Thomas DeLay, former United States House Majority Leader known as “The Hammer”, was sentenced by a Texas judge to three years in prison on money laundering charges. In November 2010, he was found guilty of funnelling corporate contributions to State legislature candidates.
While DeLay was taken into custody by bailiffs following his conviction on Monday, he was released the same day after his lawyers posted bail for $10,000.
According to reports, presiding Judge Pat Priest said to DeLay during the conviction proceedings that it was necessary “for those who write the laws to be bound by them", and refused to entertain DeLay's claim that he was the victim of political persecution and was unfairly accused of violating the law for doing what “everybody was doing”.
Maintaining a breezy casualness in media interactions throughout his trial, DeLay had earlier commented that he blamed a “rogue” district attorney and Democrats for indicting him so that he would be removed from his position in Congress. He was also quoted saying that the district attorney “shopped six grand juries...before he found a grand jury just sworn in 30 minutes to indict me.”
Community service
DeLay, who was initially slapped with a felony charge in 2005 for siphoning $190,000 in corporate donations and passing the monies on to Republican candidates in the Texas State Legislature, was also sentenced to five years in prison for a conviction under that charge. However Judge Priest allowed DeLay ten years of community service instead of time in prison.
DeLay had also been linked to Jack Abramoff, a lobbyist who was convicted of three criminal felony counts relating to “defrauding of American-Indian tribes and corruption of public officials”.
DeLay earned his nickname for his disciplinarian role as Majority Party Whip when Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives in 1995.
In that role he also played a key part in pushing through the House vote impeaching former U.S. President Bill Clinton. Although he was elevated to the role of Majority Leader in 2003, he relinquished that position after his 2005 indictment.
DeLay was notably associated with the K Street Project, described as “an effort to pressure Washington lobbying firms to hire only Republicans in top positions, and to reward loyal GOP lobbyists with access to influential officials”.
Ironically DeLay’s conviction comes in the wake of a persistent campaign by President Barack Obama’s government to limit, at the federal level, the influence of corporations and lobby firms on public policy.
These efforts however, suffered a setback in January when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Citizens United case that political spending by corporations in candidate elections would be permitted, free of government bans, on the basis of protecting the First Amendment’s free speech principle.
DeLay is expected to appeal Monday’s verdict in higher courts.
Labels: corruption, money laundering, Thomas DeLay
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
India state “biggest culprit” for rampant corruption: leading think tank
From The Hindu
“The biggest culprit” for rampant corruption in India, exemplified by recent cases such as the Commonwealth games scandal and the 2G-spectrum auction, is the Indian state, according to a leading think tank in Washington.
In a report the Heritage Foundation said that while long-standing issues such as tax evasion and corruption by the wealthy and by corporations still abound, it was the Indian government that was responsible for choking of growth by making it difficult for entrepreneurs to start businesses.
This fuelled the expansion of the black market, now said to be 40-50 per cent of India’s Gross Domestic Product, “in the neighbourhood of $600 billion.”
Pointing out that India ranked “an awful 165th out of 183 countries in the World Bank’s measure of the difficulty of starting a business,” the Heritage Foundation report said that many ordinary Indians balked at the thought of endless delays and high costs, preferring instead to proceed without the necessary authorisation and hiding their businesses from official scrutiny.
“This black market activity is due to a predatory state which seeks to control Indian entrepreneurship,” the report said, highlighting a recent headline that described how India had lost over $450 billion in illegal capital flows. This money was illegally earned and ideally would never have existed in the first place if the Indian federal government had not tried to restrict capital movement, the report said.
Touching upon some potential solutions the report’s author, Derek Scissors, said to The Hindu, “Capital account liberalisation can be technical but Reserve Bank of India should immediately commit to a schedule of capital account liberalisation to be implemented over the next three years, including limited amnesty.”
He added that the mere prospect of short-term liberalisation and some amnesty would lead to far more by way of declaration of capital flows. Further, just like the U.S., India would do well to cut its federal budget deficit, “not by a one-time telecom windfall as this year but as a long-term structural matter.” Dr. Scissors said to The Hindu that the “perceived ability to spend more money than you have leads inevitably to corruption.”
Citing the example of the Commonwealth games as illustrating the “government’s guilt” the report noted that they were plagued by overspending, due to lack of transparency and competition in state contract awards. State-run financials have also made loans in exchange for bribes, a problem which would be eased if the state did not dominate the banking system, the report added.
The report also discussed the recent telecom industry scandal, noting that there was “no telecom failure or betrayal here, quite the opposite,” that is, a failure and betrayal of federal coffers, with the “unwarranted cheapness of 2G spectrum (contributing) to a far more dynamic industry and thus led directly to the government’s windfall at this year’s 3G spectrum auction.”
When asked about the potential of policies such as the Universal ID Number and the Right to Information law to make a difference Dr. Scissors said, “Yes, these help at the micro level. It will be more difficult to violate the rights of individual citizens for the sake of graft and there should be more transparency, which always inhibits corruption”.
Overall, the Heritage Foundation report argued, “the answer is plain: deal a decisive blow against state interference in the economy.”
“The biggest culprit” for rampant corruption in India, exemplified by recent cases such as the Commonwealth games scandal and the 2G-spectrum auction, is the Indian state, according to a leading think tank in Washington.
In a report the Heritage Foundation said that while long-standing issues such as tax evasion and corruption by the wealthy and by corporations still abound, it was the Indian government that was responsible for choking of growth by making it difficult for entrepreneurs to start businesses.
This fuelled the expansion of the black market, now said to be 40-50 per cent of India’s Gross Domestic Product, “in the neighbourhood of $600 billion.”
Pointing out that India ranked “an awful 165th out of 183 countries in the World Bank’s measure of the difficulty of starting a business,” the Heritage Foundation report said that many ordinary Indians balked at the thought of endless delays and high costs, preferring instead to proceed without the necessary authorisation and hiding their businesses from official scrutiny.
“This black market activity is due to a predatory state which seeks to control Indian entrepreneurship,” the report said, highlighting a recent headline that described how India had lost over $450 billion in illegal capital flows. This money was illegally earned and ideally would never have existed in the first place if the Indian federal government had not tried to restrict capital movement, the report said.
Touching upon some potential solutions the report’s author, Derek Scissors, said to The Hindu, “Capital account liberalisation can be technical but Reserve Bank of India should immediately commit to a schedule of capital account liberalisation to be implemented over the next three years, including limited amnesty.”
He added that the mere prospect of short-term liberalisation and some amnesty would lead to far more by way of declaration of capital flows. Further, just like the U.S., India would do well to cut its federal budget deficit, “not by a one-time telecom windfall as this year but as a long-term structural matter.” Dr. Scissors said to The Hindu that the “perceived ability to spend more money than you have leads inevitably to corruption.”
Citing the example of the Commonwealth games as illustrating the “government’s guilt” the report noted that they were plagued by overspending, due to lack of transparency and competition in state contract awards. State-run financials have also made loans in exchange for bribes, a problem which would be eased if the state did not dominate the banking system, the report added.
The report also discussed the recent telecom industry scandal, noting that there was “no telecom failure or betrayal here, quite the opposite,” that is, a failure and betrayal of federal coffers, with the “unwarranted cheapness of 2G spectrum (contributing) to a far more dynamic industry and thus led directly to the government’s windfall at this year’s 3G spectrum auction.”
When asked about the potential of policies such as the Universal ID Number and the Right to Information law to make a difference Dr. Scissors said, “Yes, these help at the micro level. It will be more difficult to violate the rights of individual citizens for the sake of graft and there should be more transparency, which always inhibits corruption”.
Overall, the Heritage Foundation report argued, “the answer is plain: deal a decisive blow against state interference in the economy.”
Labels: 2G spectrum case, Commonwealth Games scandal, corruption, India, political scandals, Right to Information Act, Universal ID Number
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