OPINION:
As an adjunct professor for over 20 years, I’ve had a lot of memorable teaching moments but none better than a request I received one January from a group of graduate students studying global economics at Pepperdine University.
These students returned from trips to third-world countries and were tasked with identifying ways these countries could grow and prosper; many had the resources to thrive, but weren’t.
I watched the students’ faces fall at the question I posed: So, what’s stopping these countries from flourishing?
The students unanimously concluded that moral foundations are essential to the success of any government. No matter how many promising programs are launched, how much foreign investment is secured or how abundant a nation’s natural resources may be, none of it matters if corruption is embedded in the political system. Economic stability, individual opportunity and overall well-being all depend on a government rooted in transparency, freedom and, above all, morality. Corruption undermines these values and stalls meaningful progress.
Consider Sudan, rated one of the most corrupt third-world countries.
The Nile River, also called the river of life, flows through the country, providing fertile agricultural land. The country has vast deposits of gold, copper, chromium, uranium and more. But they’ve seen a steady decline in oil production over the past decade. Called “black gold,” oil doesn’t bring the country prosperity either.
So, what’s the problem? A lack of moral leadership.
Sudan has been plagued by corruption, hindering its economic progress. Suffering from a combination of war, human rights abuses, refugee mismanagement and lack of punishment for crimes by government officials, this potentially prosperous nation is stuck in a cycle of failure. They will not prosper until political corruption is eliminated. No small task but one essential for their people to thrive.
The United States has also struggled with its own governmental corruption, and now we’re witnessing the full extent of what our willful blindness has caused.
U.S. politicians nearly revolted when the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was formed by an executive order from President Trump. DOGE was created to “restore accountability to the American public” by “eliminating waste, bloat, and insularity.”
In simple terms, its intended function is to ensure our tax dollars are spent wisely a basic prerequisite of any moral government. Why would the people we elected, who supposedly represent the people, have a problem with this?
Because their pocketbooks are about to be a lot lighter.
Many members of Congress trade stocks and grow their personal wealth while their constituents work themselves to the bone to make ends meet poverty rates for children continue to increase.
DOGE boasts saving the American people over $30 billion, but we see no celebration from many of our politicians. Thirty billion dollars is an unimaginable amount of money for the average person. Yet, that’s how much money our own government has casually misappropriated and wasted because they thought no one was watching.
To put it in perspective, the average school costs upwards of $50 million to build, and the average annual salary in America is about $60,000. Instead of being squandered, that money could have been used to build 600 schools or to fund half a million American salaries.
Now that the American people have had the wool removed from their eyes, those who were behaving unscrupulously are upset because they’ve been caught.
The creation of DOGE, a push for election integrity and transparency in the halls of Congress are long overdue and the only way to stop American decay. We have the freedom to vote for a better future for our country, and we control whether we flourish or wither away.
We see in the Bible what happens when societies turn away from morality; they fall. We can also look objectively at history and see civilizations such as the Roman Empire collapse when they turn from what is good and seek out vice as a substitute. As Alexis de Tocqueville said on his tour of our nation in 1831, “America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”
We must return to greatness. We must return to being a nation directed by a strong moral compass. This is the only way we will thrive.
We must return to the biblically based, moral principles on which we were founded: liberty, justice, self-governance and moral integrity.
• Dr. Richard Rogers is the vice chair for American Values at the America First Policy Institute. He holds a doctorate from Pepperdine University and currently serves on the executive team at Free Chapel College, where he has been president for the past five years.
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