There was a time when public office was described as a sacrifice — a temporary act of service undertaken at personal cost. Today, it increasingly resembles something else: a career track with remarkable financial upside.
This isn’t a partisan observation. It’s structural.
Members of Congress earn fixed salaries that are publicly disclosed. Yet year after year, financial filings reveal portfolios that place many of them firmly in the ranks of the wealthy.
Nancy Pelosi has reported a net worth widely estimated north of $100 million.
Mitch McConnell has disclosed wealth in the tens of millions.
There are explanations — spouses’ careers, investments, long tenures. None of that is illegal. But legality is not the same as legitimacy in the public mind. When lawmakers routinely accumulate wealth far beyond the median citizen they regulate, confidence erodes. The appearance of alignment between power and prosperity becomes impossible to ignore.
And Congress is only part of the equation.
In many states, judges run for office. Campaigns must be funded. Fundraisers are held. Attorneys and firms that will later appear before those same judges often contribute to those campaigns. Again, much of this is legal. But the mere fact that it is legal does not quiet the deeper concern: justice must not only be impartial — it must appear impartial.
When a lawyer can host a fundraiser for a judicial candidate and later stand before that judge arguing a case, something corrosive enters the bloodstream of the system. Even if every ruling is scrupulously fair, the public sees proximity. It sees access. It sees a circle that feels too small.
Add to this the vast regulatory state, where industries are shaped by rules written by officials who may one day work within the very sectors they oversee. The so-called “revolving door” is not a conspiracy theory; it is a documented career pathway. Regulators become consultants. Staffers become lobbyists. Former officials become strategic advisors — valued precisely for their inside knowledge of the machinery of power.
The result is subtle but profound.
Wealth increasingly flows not only from innovation or production, but from navigation. Those who master the levers of influence often prosper more reliably than those who build tangible value. Compliance departments grow larger. Lobbying expenditures rise. Political fundraising becomes permanent infrastructure.
Meanwhile, small business owners, tradesmen, and entrepreneurs spend increasing amounts of time and money not creating, but complying — seeking approvals, navigating codes, managing risk from rules written far away.
The inversion becomes clear: proximity to power can yield greater returns than excellence in craft.
This is not a moral indictment of individuals. It is a critique of incentives.
When the structure of governance allows — or appears to allow — public service to coincide with private enrichment, the public begins to doubt the motives of its leaders. When judges depend on campaign donations from those who appear before them, citizens question neutrality. When regulatory complexity advantages the well-connected over the independent, trust gives way to cynicism.
A republic does not fail in a single dramatic moment. It erodes when its citizens conclude that the system rewards access more than effort.
Ayn Rand’s warning was not about one politician or one judge. It was about inversion — the quiet reversal of values. When producing requires permission from those who produce nothing; when influence outpaces industry; when the law feels less like a shield and more like a gate — society drifts.
The most dangerous consequence is not corruption itself.
It is normalization.
When young people observe that the safest path to prosperity runs through political proximity rather than productive excellence, ambition shifts. “What can I build?” becomes “Who do I need to know?”
And when that question becomes the default, the business of being in power is no longer a side effect of governance.
It becomes the point.
The Valley Viewpoint 