Twilight of an Empire

As I see the graft and corruption spread like a plague across America since the Supreme Court decided all elections can be sold to highest bidder it reminded me of one of the short stories in James A. Michener's The Source: Twilight of an Empire. The story is about the Ottoman Empire in the late 1800's and centers on the town of Tubariyeh (biblical Tiberias) on the edge of the Sea of Gallilee.

Kaimakam Tabari had one simple rule of administration, and it was understood by his subjects: In Tubariyeh positively everything was for sale... For the issuance of the simplest government paper, and established scale of bribes was in force, and in either the civil court or the religious court of the Mufti and decision that was wanted could be had by paying the proper baksheesh to the kaimakam.
Of course the income thus gained was by no means all his. He was generous in paying off his subordinates and in splitting fees with the qadi and the mufti. Furthermore, he had to send regular bribes to Akka and Beirut. As a constant drain on the people of Tubariyeh; there was no money left for schools, or sewers, or water supply, or a jail in which a human being could survive. There were no hospitals, no adequate policing, no fire fighting and no roads.

Our tea party governor takes office on Sunday. She just appointed a crony from El Paso to head CYFD. How many more New Mexico government jobs are going to go to the Texans that bankrolled her?
As our infastructure crumbles, schools decay, people die from want of health care, houses being allowed to burn because the homeowner didn't pay the fee, inner cities fear the police if they come at all, does this ring a bell?