However, in that post, I puzzled over what Corker was really doing in the bizarre sequence. He didn't have anything to fear from a primary challenge since he isn't running for reelection. His vote won't be pivotal. He has already alienated the whole party. I just didn't see what was going on with him. The discussion right now is about how much Corker will benefit, personally, from new provisions for pass-through real estate businesses. Basically, you own a bunch of property, and make money off of that, the new version of the bill gives you a shitload of money that the original Senate version didn't. It is probably there for Donny-boy, but Corker also gets a lot of money in the deal. And, suddenly, he's a yes vote.
This is a hard thing to evaluate. Is that why Corker changed? I have a somewhat difficult time seeing anything else, but as a general rule, I get very skeptical of this style of argument. Here's the thing, though. You run through the list of every change to the bill that has been made in the House-Senate conference, and this is the only one anyone has been able to find that makes sense, as far as I have read.
So, that's it, right?
Unless his initial vote was just bullshit posturing. The problem is always the question of what you don't see. Like I said, I have a "somewhat" difficult time... Corker is retiring, but what's he doing next? He's basically a party guy. He was never a rabble-rouser. He is exactly the kind of guy who usually winds up on K-street, in think tanks, giving speeches, or something like that. But, the conservative side of things... they really don't like apostasy. Particularly on tax cuts.
Corker took a lot of shit for that no vote. There were, undoubtedly, unpleasant conversations behind closed doors. As in, vote yes or we won't hire you.
Now, that's still a personal benefit! A different kind, but similar in principle. It still means we have to think about the kinds of things we don't observe, though, and it isn't necessarily a change to the bill that changed Corker.
There's also the possibility that he just had so many people pressuring him that he... crumbled.
I'm going to say it, because I've said it before, and it bears repeating. Republicans are weaklings. Remember how Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Lindsey Graham, and all of those others were treated by Donald Trump? Trump called Cruz's wife ugly and accused his father of being involved in the fucking Kennedy assassination! And yet, they were all brought to heel. Why? Because Republicans, at their core, are weaklings. They love to talk tough. They idolize tough guys because that's what they want to be, but they got nothin'. This is really what the "authoritarian personality" is about. Why do authoritarians love tough-talking psychopaths? Because they are cowards, and they think that a tough-talking in-group psychopath will protect them from the scary out-group. Theodor Adorno et al., 1950. Still relevant.
Maybe there is nothing more complicated than Corker just... crumbling. Like Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Lindsey Graham, and everyone else who can't take the horrific torture of a Trump tweet.
Hey! I've got an idea! "EXTREME enhanced interrogation." Instead of waterboarding, sleep deprivation, feeding tubes and other war crimes for which we prosecute others, let's just have Trump send mean tweets about whomever we arrest under suspicion of terrorist activities! It's enough to break congressional Republicans.
So, maybe it is nothing more complicated than Republicans telling him, "hey, you're a Republican. This is a tax cut. Get back in line!" And Corker got back in line, like a good, "liddle," Republican.
Is Corker flipping because of how he will benefit, personally? Maybe! I don't know. It is plausible, but I can think of other explanations, and Being Bob Corker sounds like a crappy movie.
One might want such considerations gone from politics, but that's a pipe dream. There are laws about conflicts of interest, but enforcing them is hard. Ideally, wouldn't we kind of want everyone in Congress to put their assets in a blind trust, the way every ethics lawyer in the country said that Trump should have done? Well, yes, but even there, you've got problems. Remember, this is about real estate. Are you never allowed to buy real estate?
How about, say, art? Let's say Members of Congress had to put their "assets" in blind trusts. Could they buy art, as art enthusiasts? Could they then turn around and sell a piece of art if they decided they didn't like it that much? You see where I'm going, and you see the enforceability problem. True, there isn't a lot of regulation of the art market, but once you have buying and selling, you have assets moving around, and then you have interaction with people who have money at stake in other areas of the economy, and there's your conflict of interest. If I'm buying and selling art to you, and you have an interest in a policy, then I have an interest in that policy.
At the end of the day, conflicts of interest are just really hard to avoid in government, and they don't generally concern me all that much. I am less concerned with why officials make decisions than I am with what decisions they make, and with the visibility of the decisions they make.
Corker, though, creates a problem. Retiring legislators, like term-limited legislators, can't be punished for doing vile shit. Term limits are among the dumbest reforms you can impose because they take away the necessary check on legislators' behavior.
Public officials are employees. Voters are their employers. How does this work? Employers need a credible threat to fire employees who fuck up, shirk, cheat, steal, etc. Employees who do their jobs should be retained. Deterministically. Employees who don't should be fired. Deterministically. There is no room for coin tosses, or any of that stupid shit that might create an analog to a competitive election. And if you tell an employee, "you're fired, but stick around for two more weeks," and expect any work to get done, you're a fucking idiot. That's term limits. And a retiring employee... expect a little slacking off at best. Corker is retiring. Why would anyone expect him to behave decently?
Hey! I wrote a book about this!
(The new book has a listing on Amazon, but isn't available yet... We're trying to speed up production, but we'll see.)