If it could be framed right, as a proposal from the center (which it obviously is) I think you could get enough support from the currently-disenfranchised center-right to get something like that in most states, if not in a federal bill.  

But yeah, probably not going to happen. 

The American Right would never tolerate such behavior.

There is a lot of wasteful spending associated with Customs and all the other departments and branches under the Homeland Security’s wide umbrella.  They only have to be associated with “protecting our borders” and they tend to get a lot more money than other departments.  This is a problem mostly caused by the GOP, but there are a lot of guilty Democrats as well.  The partisan atmosphere is probably the biggest culprit, since spending gets way too politicized.  

An instant easy fix to decrease partisanship?  Make voter registration required.  It seems to work great for Australia.  It would even help to make registration the default option when getting a drivers license: just have an “op-out” box, and at no real loss to personal liberty you increase the number of moderates who will vote.

I don’t really agree with you at all that we have a “political class” in this country, in any relevant way other than we have a very powerful, very well-educated group with a strong concentration of wealth.  When Civil servants control intelligence divisions with billion dollar budgets, it’s easy to see how smart, good people will be tempted to skim a bit off the top.  And many probably get away with it, just like in big business.  I bet it happens more in business, since government has a lot more procedural checks than business. (the infamous “red tape”)The department here is key; the Intelligence division of Customs.  They’ve gotten quite a bit of money funneled from Homeland-Security-type budgeting.  This money is often not watched as closely as other funds.

I mean, I hate the idea of using more tax money with the debt we have, but increasing salaries is usually a good way to both improve the quality of people and decrease the incentive to take bribes and misuse money.
Of course there will probably always be corrupt people in government, just as there are out.  

I don’t understand why the people who decide to undertake the burden of civil service are barely held responsible for their actions, especially when those actions involve stealing our tax money. Civil servants need to be held to a HIGHER standard, not a lower one.

But that would terrify the wrong share of the populace. Think of the job creators.

9/11 changed everything.

And never mind the far, far bigger corruption involving billions of dollars, and the control of the federal government by far, far bigger thieves, the plutocrats who, by the by, fund anti-Nanny State propaganda. Nothing to see there, nothing at all, move along, plebes.

Getting excited by stories like this one is a lot like watching the police hunt down  desperate members of the lower classes on a show like “Cops.” Why don’t those shows ever film the exciting throw-down of thieving, financially bloated plutocrats? (Rhetorical question, that. Sigh.)

Isn’t this the sort of situation where the simple size of the number throws a red flag, and a talking-to from HQ about travel expenses, even if nobody yet suspects the fraud?