How do American politicians explain to their kids, that they voted to spend someone else’s (taxpayer) money for contracts or grants, that benefit organizations or companies whose officers or owners contributed to their parents political campaigns?

The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe

if the people tolerate the growth of private power

to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself.

 

That, in essence, is fascism,

ownership of government by an individual

by a group or by any other controlling power

 

Franklin Delano Roosevelt