"The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those they oppress." Frederic Douglass

Preview America at the Abyss: A View From the Heartland by John Mitchel

Even before I challenged Bob Taft for Ohio Governor in 1998, I often wondered how men of relatively modest means spend 25 or 30 years as elected officials in state and federal government, and come out the other side as multi-millionaires. Just like you and me, career politicians like 9-term incumbent Dave Hobson educate their children, pay taxes, save for retirement, pay medical bills, and incur other enormous expenses necessary to raise a family. And yet, if we examine Mr. Hobson’s mandatory Financial Disclosure Statement, we can conclude that he has a personal net worth of between 10 and 20 million dollars. Federal election law requires that Dave Hobson disclose personal financial assets and outside income, but for good reason, Hobson’s Congressional colleagues made sure the laws they passed on personal financial disclosure didn’t require any measure of specificity, as that may provide clues to track down potential illegal activity, if in fact it occurred. In any case, although America at the Abyss goes a long way to explain how your Congressman can amass a fortune on the relatively modest salary of a public servant, you may be interested in a Congressional perk that came to my attention after we went to press.

As you know, family vacations can be a very expensive proposition, but I didn’t know how expensive until I accomplished a little research on the Ripon Society. The Ripon Society, a moderately conservative think tank in Wisconsin, spends hundreds of thousands of dollars sending our elected officials on world junkets. They have been especially generous to Ohio Congressmen John Boehner, Mike Oxley (retired in 2006), Bob Ney (now in federal prison), and Dave Hobson. In January, 2005, the Ripon Society provided an all-expense-paid trip for Mr. Hobson to Key Biscayne, Florida costing $2537. Seems like a lot for a four-day trip, but it did provide Congressman Hobson a respite from one of those harsh Ohio winters. Sure, these trips are always advertised as some sort of “legislative conference,” but I’ll bet most of the time was spent on golf, pool time and other extracurricular activities that had nothing to do with formulating sound public policy or balancing the budget.

Even more interesting are Congressman and Mrs. Hobson’s junkets to Edinburgh, Scotland in 2001 and Budapest, Hungary in 2004. The Ripon Society paid $19,572 for the Edinburgh trip, and $15,226 to send the Hobson’s to Budapest. That’s an average of more than $2000 per day for two people. You may have taken your entire family on week-long vacations that cost less than one day’s expense incurred by Mr. and Mrs. Hobson, but paid for by the Ripon Society. Congressman Hobson and his public relations staff seem to be very successful at getting their press releases published, especially right before elections, but I’m sure this story was one they preferred to keep in the shadows.

Expensive, tax-free travel paid for by special interests is one of the many perks that allow our elected officials to amass huge fortunes during a career as a public servant on a public servant’s salary. Of course this is a legal activity, because the U.S. Congress made it so. But I think it’s wrong as it opens the door wide for pay-to-play politics and influence peddling. As you will learn when you read America at the Abyss, lavish vacations for elected officials paid for by special interests are not the only activity that subsidizes career politicians’ kingly life styles, and what’s even worse, special interest cash doesn’t always foot the bill; it’s often the taxpayers with no knowledge of doing so.

I’d be interested in your comments on free vacations for elected officials, or any other matter. If you are inclined to offer your opinion, please email mitch07ohio@patriotpressohio.com .

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