Senator Coburn is ready for a showdown with the Senate Ethics Committee. At issue is his practice as an obstetrician. When he became senator he had to give up charging for delivering babies because senators are not allowed outside income. But Coburn has continued and is just not charging the women. He is paying his own malpractice insurance himself. The problem that the Ethics Committee has is that the hospital where he delivers the babies is a for-profit hospital and Senate rules forbid such potential conflicts of interest. Coburn, who is one tough guy, is willing to bring the whole issue out into the public and force a vote on whether he should be penalized for delivering babies for free even if the hospital he does it at is trying to make a profit.
And the real corruption we have to worry about is not his tangential association with a for-pay hospital, but the benefits that politicians, whether they are in the Congress or running for higher office, receive from rich people who just want to do them favors. Senator Stevens's scandal demonstrates how easy it is for senators to try to preserve their deniability by saying that they just didn't know that the real estate company was undercharging him on his house renovations. Rather like Senator Edwards saying he just didn't know that his moneybags friend, Tony Baron, was paying for Edwards' mistress to move out to California and live in a multi-million dollar mansion. These guys just happen to have friends who do that sort of thing for politicians without even telling them about it.
(more...)I suppose Pelosi, Clinton, and Obama's book deals aren't considered "outside income". I thought that was the basis of the entire argument about paying Congress a salary... to prevent the independently wealthy from entrenching themselves into government without any outside responsibility or experience.
http://betsyspage.blogspot.com/2008/08/senate-to-tom-coburn-stop-delivering.html
