We really need steeply progressive income tax rates in the USA to greatly reduce the capacity of government officials to enrich themselves through payouts from the industries that they are supposed to regulate.

There is plausible deniability in the funding through lobbyists and “speaking” fees to government officials. People and industries are interested in the “insights” of government officials, this not just a simple buying of access and influence, right?

Frankly, I come to the conclusion that in many or most of the cases, the fees purchase access and influence. There was a time when influence-peddling was a bad thing.

The plausible deniability of these kind of fees makes it very hard to come up with a way to address them. The only way to address it that I see is a confiscatory top tax rate that would mean that Lawrence Summers would have paid most of the millions received from the hedge fund and “speaking” engagements into the Treasury through a top tax rate of 75% or more instead of putting it in his pocket.

Can you say Robber Barons?