THE WASHINGTON UNION PAPERS: NO. 6

REBUILDING TRUST IN GOVERNMENT: ENDING CORRUPTION & CORPORATE INFLUENCE

To the People of the United States,

A government that serves the people must be trusted by the people. But trust cannot be demanded—it must be earned. It is not granted by virtue of office, nor secured by tradition alone; it is built through integrity, through accountability, through the unwavering commitment of leaders who understand that public service is a duty, not a privilege. And yet, in America today, that trust has been shattered. It has not eroded by accident, nor is it the result of mere cynicism. It has been broken deliberately, piece by piece, by those who saw in government not a solemn responsibility, but an opportunity for self-enrichment. It has been traded away for political expediency, sold to the highest bidder, and warped into a system where power is not wielded in the name of justice, but in the service of those who can afford to purchase it.

“The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.” So warned Patrick Henry, and yet today, secrecy and deception define the American political system. Backroom deals, corporate lobbying, dark money super PACs—these are the new instruments of governance. The will of the people is no longer the guiding force of our republic; instead, it is the will of those who can fund campaigns, who can flood the airwaves with propaganda, who can buy politicians outright and ensure that the laws of this nation are written in their favor. A nation that was founded on the principle that government derives its power from the consent of the governed has been transformed into one where the people are little more than spectators, allowed to vote, allowed to protest, but never truly heard.

The people no longer believe their government works for them, and they are right to feel this way. How can trust exist when lawmakers who once struggled to pay their own bills suddenly leave office with fortunes? How can trust exist when the policies that shape our daily lives are drafted not by elected officials, but by corporate lawyers and lobbyists in offices far from public scrutiny? How can trust exist when the scales of justice are so imbalanced that a man who steals food to feed his family is jailed while those who rob the nation through fraud and exploitation walk free?

"If the people cannot trust their government to do the job for which it exists—to protect them and to promote their common welfare—all else is lost," said Thomas Jefferson. And yet, today, the government does not exist for the common welfare. It exists to serve the few at the expense of the many. The tax code is written not to ensure fairness, but to provide loopholes for the wealthiest corporations while the average worker pays a higher percentage of their income. Bailouts are given to banks that collapse the economy, but no such relief is offered to families struggling under the weight of medical bills, stagnant wages, and rising costs of living. The people are not protected; they are preyed upon. The government does not serve—it extracts, it exploits, it enriches itself and those who fund it.

James Madison once wrote, "The essence of government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse." That abuse is no longer hypothetical—it is here, it is now, and it is deeply embedded in the very institutions that claim to represent us. Corruption is no longer the exception—it is the rule. It is legal. It is institutionalized. And worst of all, it is expected. The people no longer hope for honest leadership because they have been conditioned to believe it does not exist. And what follows when a nation loses faith in its leaders? What happens when the people no longer see a government that is accountable, but one that is an adversary?

History provides the answer, and it is not one that should be ignored. The American Revolution was not fought over taxes alone—it was fought over the principle that government must be just, that it must answer to the people, that power must not be wielded in secrecy for the benefit of the privileged few. "All men having power ought to be mistrusted," warned John Adams, and yet today, we have entrusted power to those who no longer even pretend to serve the people. And so, trust has been replaced with resentment. Faith has been replaced with fury. And democracy has been replaced with a system that bears its name but not its substance.

This is not sustainable. No nation can endure under a government that commands no faith from its people. No republic can survive when its leaders are seen not as representatives, but as rulers. The people have given their trust freely, and time and again, it has been betrayed. The only way forward is through radical reform—through the dismantling of the systems that have allowed corruption to flourish, through the removal of those who see public service as a means for personal gain, through the return of government to those it was meant to serve. For as Benjamin Franklin warned, "Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters."

We must decide now: will we reclaim our government before it is too late, or will we allow it to become an institution that serves only its own survival? Trust in government can be restored, but only if that government proves itself worthy of trust. And that will not happen through speeches or promises—it will happen through action, through accountability, through the unwavering demand that those in power either serve the people or be replaced by those who will.

We have been lied to. We have been told that this is simply the way things are. That politics has always been corrupt, that the revolving door between government and corporate power is inevitable, that no system can truly be free from special interests. But those who say this do so to justify their own complicity. Corruption is not inevitable. Corporate dominance over policy is not a law of nature. These are choices—choices that have been made by those who profit from the decay of public trust. And what has this decay brought us? A Congress more interested in fundraising than legislating. A regulatory system designed not to protect consumers but to ensure monopolies remain unchallenged. A Supreme Court that has ruled that money is speech, giving billionaires the power to drown out the voices of ordinary citizens. And a government that, when faced with the collapse of industries due to its own negligence, rushes to bail out banks while leaving the working class to suffer.

This is not democracy. This is not self-governance. This is rule by the highest bidder, a system in which influence is for sale and the concerns of everyday Americans are treated as obstacles rather than priorities. But let us be clear—this decline is not permanent. Trust in government can be restored, but only if that government proves itself worthy of the people’s confidence. This will not happen through empty rhetoric or symbolic gestures. It will require a fundamental restructuring of how power operates in Washington. It will require the dismantling of the systems that have allowed corruption to fester unchecked. It will require the Washington Union Plan.

The Washington Union Plan recognizes that a government captured by corporate interests is not a government at all. It is an auction house, a transactional body where policy is crafted not in the interest of the people but in service to the highest bidder. This must end. And it will end through the following principles:

First, we must close the revolving door between public office and private profit. No public servant should enter office with the promise of a high-paying corporate job waiting for them on the other side. No lawmaker should be allowed to pass legislation that benefits an industry only to be rewarded with a cushy board seat at the very companies they were meant to regulate. Public service must be just that—service, not self-enrichment.

Second, we must end the system of legalized bribery that has allowed corporate money to dominate our elections and policymaking. Citizens United was not merely a bad ruling—it was the codification of corruption, the enshrinement of oligarchy over democracy. We must overturn it. We must establish strict campaign finance laws that ensure no billionaire, no corporation, no special interest group can buy influence at the expense of the will of the people. Elections should be decided by voters, not by who can spend the most on attack ads and lobbyists.

Third, we must impose term limits on Congress and the Supreme Court. A government of the people cannot be ruled by those who see their offices as lifetime appointments, whose only allegiance is to maintaining their own power. The longer politicians remain in Washington, the more disconnected they become from the realities of those they claim to represent. If public service is to be restored, it must be a duty, not a career path to wealth and privilege.

Fourth, we must make corruption a crime with real consequences. It is a damning indictment of our system that a petty thief can be sentenced to years in prison while those who defraud the public of billions face no consequences beyond a temporary dip in their stock value. Corporate executives who engage in fraud, politicians who accept bribes, regulators who look the other way—these people must face the full weight of the law. Without accountability, there is no trust. And without trust, there is no democracy.

Fifth, we must end corporate welfare and hold businesses accountable to the country that made their success possible. No corporation should be allowed to extract wealth from American workers while dodging taxes and shipping jobs overseas. If a company benefits from the American economy, it must contribute to it. No more loopholes that allow billion-dollar businesses to pay less in taxes than the people who stock their shelves and clean their offices. No more subsidies for industries that poison our environment, suppress wages, and treat workers as disposable.

This is not radical. This is not extreme. This is what must be done if America is to have a government that serves its people rather than exploits them. It is not an attack on democracy to demand that it function as it was intended. It is not an act of rebellion to expect that the representatives of the people actually represent them. And it is not extremism to insist that those entrusted with power wield it not for personal gain but for the common good. What is radical is the idea that a democracy can survive while serving the interests of a privileged elite at the expense of the many. What is extreme is the belief that corporations and lobbyists should hold more influence over policy than voters. And what is truly dangerous is the notion that the people should simply accept this as the natural order of things.

The alternative to reform is a continued descent into cynicism, into disengagement, into a democracy that exists in name only while the real decisions are made in boardrooms and lobbying firms. This is not speculation—it is already happening. We have seen how public faith in government has deteriorated, how voter participation has declined as people realize that their voices are drowned out by corporate money and special interests. We have watched as entire communities, entire generations, have given up on the belief that government is capable of improving their lives. And we have witnessed the rise of resentment, of division, of anger that, if left unaddressed, will tear at the very fabric of our republic.

We cannot allow this. To surrender to this decay is to accept the slow death of democracy itself. It is to allow the institutions of self-governance to be hollowed out until all that remains is the illusion of choice, a puppet show where the actors change but the script remains the same. It is to concede that government will always be corrupt, that power will always serve the few, that the people must simply endure whatever injustices are imposed upon them. That is not democracy. That is not freedom. That is not America.

The people cannot afford to wait for reform to come from those who benefit from the system as it is. Those in power will not voluntarily relinquish their influence. They will not willingly dismantle the structures that have enriched them. They will not, out of the goodness of their hearts, restore democracy to those from whom they have taken it. History has shown us that entrenched power does not yield to polite requests. It must be forced to yield. It must be challenged, confronted, removed, and replaced by those who understand that governance is not a means of self-enrichment but an obligation to the people.

We must demand it. We must force it. And we must ensure that those who resist it are removed from power, replaced by those who understand that governance is a responsibility, not an entitlement. This will not happen through passive hope. It will not happen through empty rhetoric. It will happen only when the people recognize that they are not subjects, but citizens—that they do not merely vote for leaders, but hold them accountable—that they do not ask for justice, but insist upon it. It will happen when the people decide that corruption is not an unfortunate side effect of governance, but an enemy that must be eradicated. It will happen when those who betray the public trust are not simply criticized, but removed, prosecuted, and made examples of. It will happen when the people rise—not with violence, not with anarchy, but with the unshakable will to reclaim what is rightfully theirs.

The future of this nation will not be determined by those in office—it will be determined by those who choose to demand better. The only question that remains is whether we will have the courage to make that demand. For if we do not, then we will have no one to blame but ourselves when the government that was meant to serve us becomes a government that rules over us instead. And that is a fate that we must never allow to come to pass.

There will be those who say that such reforms are impossible, that corruption is too entrenched, that the system cannot be changed. But history has proven them wrong before, and it will do so again. When the people demand change with enough force, when they refuse to accept excuses, when they make clear that they will no longer tolerate a government that serves wealth over justice, power over principle, self-interest over duty—then change becomes inevitable.

The question is not whether America can rebuild trust in its government. The question is whether those in power will allow it to happen willingly, or whether the people will have to take that power from them. Either way, the future is coming. And it belongs to those who refuse to accept corruption as the price of democracy. It belongs to those who will not sit idly by while lobbyists buy policy and corporations write legislation. It belongs to those who understand that democracy is not a spectator sport, that governance is not something done to us, but by us, and that power only belongs to those who have the courage to wield it.

Let it be known now: the days of unchecked corruption are numbered. The system that has enriched the few at the expense of the many is running on borrowed time. The Washington cartel, the revolving door between Congress and corporate boardrooms, the auctioning of influence to the highest bidder—none of it is permanent. None of it is unbreakable. None of it is immune to the force of a people who have decided that they will no longer be ruled by greed and deception. The arrogance of the political class, the smug certainty that they can placate the public with empty words while continuing to sell them out behind closed doors—that will be their downfall. For they have mistaken silence for consent. They have mistaken exhaustion for surrender. And they will soon learn that the patience of the American people is not endless.

The time of pleading with those in power to do the right thing has passed. The time for asking nicely is over. The people will not wait for the corrupt to police themselves, nor will they tolerate the continued betrayal of their trust. If those in office will not clean house, then the people will do it for them. If they will not serve the public, then they will be replaced by those who will. And if they believe that they can continue down this path without consequence, they will find themselves standing against a tide that cannot be bought, cannot be bribed, and will not be stopped.

This is not a warning—it is a promise. A government that no longer serves its people will be made to serve them. The question is not whether change will come, but whether those in power will choose to lead it or be swept away by it. Either way, it is coming. And when it does, let them remember this moment. Let them remember that they had the chance to listen, to reform, to prove that democracy was more than a façade for corporate rule. Let them remember that they could have chosen the side of the people. And let them know that their failure to do so sealed their fate.

The future belongs to those who refuse to accept corruption as the price of democracy. It belongs to those who are ready to demand better, to fight for better, to build a nation that is governed not by the highest bidder, but by the will of its citizens. The old order is crumbling, the rot is being exposed, and the reckoning is at hand. America will not be ruled by those who serve themselves, but by those who serve the people. And the people are ready to reclaim what is theirs.