2008 may well be known as the year of the crooked politician. Political official after political official from PA State Senator Vincent Fumo to Alaska Senator Ted Stevens has been indicted on a host of criminal charges. Now, Larry Langford, Mayor of Birmingham, Alabama, joins the list.
On yesterday, the FBI arrested Langford on federal charges including conspiracy, bribery, fraud, money laundering and filing false income tax returns. The charges stem from activities while Langford was president of the Jefferson County Commission. Langford allegedly pushed millions of dollars of municipal bond work to his friend. The bond deals eventually failed and have played a part in what could be the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.
Langford was named in the indictment along with William Blount, an investment banker, and Albert LaPierre, a lobbyist. Langford, who reportedly received nearly a quarter million dollars in bribes for his part in the bond deal, failed to report the income on his tax returns. You can read the indictment here – the tax charges are Counts 87 through 89.
Langford has apparently expected the indictment for months. He has referred to the investigation as a “witchhunt by Republican prosecutors.”
The prosecution is seeking criminal forfeiture of about $7.6 million from each of the defendants. Prison sentences could reach a maximum of 10 years for each bribery and money-laundering count, 20 years for each fraud count, five years for the conspiracy count and three years for each tax count.
After posting his bond, Langford issued no immediate statement other than he was going “back to work.”
We have to look at the fundamental problem that is effecting many politicians and has the potential to effect all politicians. It is the never ending growth of government. How can we, as citizens, expect the single richest entity in human history to be controlled by mere laws and citizen outrage? People complain about companies like Exxon/Mobil and the tens of billions in profits they make and we think that this is a corrupting influence on them. We look with skepticism at how they achieved this and many are concerned at the power and control that all this money affords them as well as the consequences on the consumer.
Maybe we should apply the same scrutiny to the government. Since the total take in taxes and fees by the Fed and state governments tops 4 trillion dollars a year, we might need to consider that we will never be able to keep the government in check. Comparing the amount of tax money to the government to the profits of companies like Exxon cannot even be made. Exxon profits are a pittance compared to the government and they are the most profitable company in the US. It is like comparing Bill Gates to a homeless person.
Corruption will continue to increase as the big money keeps pouring in. All this government that so many ignorant people want is going to be the death of this country as we know it. We continue to ignore world history thinking that the US is too big, too great, and too powerful to fall apart and yet we can see the very same thing has happened over and over throughout history to many and all great cultures that choose this road. The road of big government leads to big power and then to big corruption. The size of our government is the reason for the massive corruption we have and it will continue to get worse as long as we give politicians control over the largest sums of money to ever be controlled by any governing body. Barring massive cuts to government taxing and spending, we will never get this corruption under control.
An Alabama politician is crooked and somehow that is news? Check out our double dipping legislators or how about their families who got really good pay for non existent jobs – or the college presidents and other executives of those same colleges who also got paid for not doing anything. Or how a legislator got paid for work she did for a college while she just happened not to be there that day. And the folks in our legislature who make this all possible by allocating the money and establishing the jobs in the first place. I have always been on the side of states rights – but the only thing I fear more than the federal folks are our own state folks……..and I’ll be darned if we don’t keep sending the same folks back to Montgomery again and again and again.
Skip McQuaid