It would seem that for a lot of these politicos that when they run for office they and their insiders have in mind who they can extort using the power of the US taxpayer’s money. No wonder they want to raise our taxes - it gives them so much more to self-deal with.
Did this go on before the Clintons? It must have but I don’t remember it being so blatant.
I think there’s always been corruption in government, but some things have changed.
One is, that relative to the size of the economy, the government so much bigger than it used to be, both in terms of the amount of activity/money it handles and controls, and also in terms of the number of levels in the government hierarchy.
Another is that the Internet has a long memory for things people have said (although there are efforts to erase the past), and there’s a lot more information out there to peruse.