You nailed it.  The politicians are turning a blind eye to the corruption because the builders contribute money to them.  Unless this money-politician connection goes away the people are going to keep getting screwed because corporations run the govt.  And we keep having to draw our next elected officials from the same contaminated pool of crooks regardless of which party they're with.  Do away with the means for anyone to buy off our elected officials and the motivation to do what corporate interests want could largely disappear.

IMO, that’s not what has been going on in Republican politics. Not praising Dems as the ultimate answer, as I lean more to left than right on many things, but I’m not hard locked on parties anymore.

Overall our current elected group will eventually acknowledge a problem with endless pounding, but will put up a bogus solution that serve the people who caused the problems to begin with, and make it appear they are listening to constituents.

That’s what the TRCC is, as is the housing bill, our energy policy…so on. Sure, it’s the corporate cash that really runs the show now. But researching the issue a long time, it seems that back in the late 60s and 70s the feds really created the pattern of placing a <buy me> button on politicians.

Through the IRS, they cracked down on people who sometimes had great wealth and more political influence than whoever was in office. It wasn’t just about tax evasion, the IRS was/is a weapon. They destroyed people, and so big biz people learned if you want to do business in America you got to pay up. That’s never been more true than today.

We’re also very polarized and divided as a nation now, as well. I think people recognize they are all caught up in schemes and scams no matter what, and there is this enormous sense of disillusion in anybody that pays any attention. people don't know what to believe, and many who are sure they do know are in denial about what's really happening.

Doing nothing is not an option though. I sort of liken the situation to our mold problem. We had five HEPA filters running to filter out the mold, but the house was so contaminated, the filters were just white noise. The contamination had to be removed to begin to fix the problem. Half the problem was understanding the problem that needed to be fixed, sorting past a lot of bad information. I think our government is much the same. But you’re right, only outspoken political will can change anything, and is has to be changed.