“Unfortunately, I am under no illusion that this is confined to the Rat Party”.
They have numerous way to make money. Fake book deals, pushing out foreign aid then taking a piece (the ambassadors are in on it too), 501’s they control where the people they are passing laws about push $$ in to the “nonprofit”, no show jobs for their family members who funnel part of the $$ back to them, threatening to pass or passing laws that send publicly traded stocks up or down (they short or buy). The list goes on. Republicans like the entire Bush family are in on this kind of graft (seen it first hand).
These things just don’t happen on a federal level. It from the bottom to the top. That’s why here in Texas a person can be in the legislature making peanuts and get rich while having no other job.
There is a reason the US is bankrupt, it’s thievery by the professional politicians.
You can just sense it because almost nothing they do, looking from the top down, makes a damned bit of sense . . . unless you understand they are making big money off of it.