Something Schwarzenegger Never Learned On His Trips To China-- Dealing With Political Corruption

One of the things I've admired about China in recent years is that when public officials get too corrupt and greedy and allow poisoned milk or defective drugs into the "free" market, they get the death penalty. I like it. I recall reading the NY Times piece about one such case a couple years ago.

For the second time in three months, a former high-ranking official at China’s top food and drug watchdog agency has been sentenced to death for corruption and approving counterfeit drugs, the state-run news media said on Friday.

Cao Wenzhuang, who until 2005 was in charge of drug registration approvals at the State Food and Drug Administration, was accused of accepting more than $300,000 in bribes from two pharmaceutical companies and helping undermine the public’s confidence in an agency that is supposed to be safeguarding the nation’s health.

Mr. Cao’s sentence was handed down by the No. 1 Intermediate Court in Beijing, less than two months after the same court sentenced Zheng Xiaoyu, the former head of the Food and Drug Administration to death for accepting $850,000 in bribes to help steer drug companies through various approval processes.

I was so disappointed to learn that all these nasty little Chinese Republicans have been getting their death sentences reprieved. China has been pressured by western do-gooders to not execute non-violent criminals. What a shame; we should be executing them here too. But at least in China they do rot in prisons for good long sentences, unlike in the U.S. where corrupt officials are rarely prosecuted and even when fond guilty almost never serve any serious time. Tom DeLay, for example, is still loose. Karl Rove refuses to even show up to answer questions. Katherine Harris stole an American presidential election and no one even said "boo."

Today's L.A. Times has a story of government corruption that is especially disturbing in light of Schwarzenegger's insistence that thousands of state employees be laid off because of the state budget deficits. While he was plotting to hand out pink slips to teachers and hard working career civil servants, his political cronies were stealing the taxpayers blind. "Over the last two years, as California has slashed services and scrambled to pay bills, top administration officials have made free use of government expense accounts with little oversight and, in some cases, no documentation."

Carrie Lopez, director of the Department of Consumer Affairs, charged taxpayers to fly from Sacramento, where she works, to Los Angeles, where she lives, to attend a Justin Timberlake concert with her daughter. She listed the trip on her expense report as a meeting with the energy company that paid for the concert tickets. Lopez also billed the state for meals on days she received those meals for free from corporations, according to state records.

And there are lots like Ms Lopez. I'm not calling for the death penalty here. It isn't like killing babies who drink tainted milk. But unless corrupt government officials are severely punished-- and in a way that is made very public-- ripping off the public will always be a profitable gamble with great odds.