Michael Crowley, a senior editor at the New Republic, wrote this article in Reader’s Digest:
Your Taxes at Play
Free foreign trips. No-show "jobs". Outright bribes. Welcome to the statehouse.
The article starts with the notorious story of Pennsylvania State Senator Vincent J. Fumo, who is claimed to the most crooked politician in America. He was charged spending more than $2 million of taxpayers’ money on a lifestyle fit more for a king than a state legislator. According to the federal indictment, Fumo had state employees clean his house, do home renovations, and even drive his car to and from Martha’s Vineyard every summer while the senator flew on a private plane.
Well, if you don’t where is Martha’s Vinyard, take a look. It is a island close to Massachusetts. It is known as "summer colony", a very popular summer resort.
The senator’s philosophy is summed up in this way: a person is best advised to spend "other people’s money" He as known to use the slang shorthand for it: OPM. It is, of course, your money.
This is an estimation: legislatures dole out more than $1 trillion a year on everything from highways to child care. Yet state lawmakers operate under much less scrutiny than members of the US Congress.
That is to say, there is almost a $1 trillion that is subject to OPM usage.
Michael, the author of the article, is quite angry about the situation. He mentioned "you can find state sleaze by point to anywhere on a US map with your eyes closed.", followed by couple of outrageous examples.
There is also a very interesting group of people in the US called "lobbyist". They are the people know how to do legal bribery. The Center for Public Integrity estimated that lobbyists spend over $1 billion annually cajoling state governments to pass this bill or that. They are clever about circumnavigating reforms, of course. According to a San Francisco Chronicle report, recent getaways for California pols have included a cruise near New Zealand for five members of the legislature, golf at a Maui resort for a state senator, and dinner in Rome and a stay at Rio de Janeiro resort for the state assembly speaker. There is a term for those gifts: junket.