The Stevens Scandal

Don Boudreaux of George Mason University sent out the following missive about Ted Stevens’s indictment. I don’t see it posted at Cafe Hayek, though it might yet be. But since I can’t improve on his pithy commentary, I offer it here:

I’m delighted to see Sen. Ted Stevens face jail time for his crimes while in office. To charge him with concealing gifts totaling $250,000, however, is the equivalent of charging a confessed mass murderer with jaywalking. If that’s the only way to bring the criminal to justice, fine. But Sen. Stevens’s most significant misdeeds — ones of which he boasts! — are his decades‐​long success at directing billions of taxpayer dollars to special‐​interest groups for no reason other than the fact that he possessed the power and position to buy himself even greater security in office by doing so.


Of course, punishing all the criminals guilty of THAT offense would depopulate Capitol Hill.