Happy New Year.

One of the things we’re most happy about is simply leaving 2005 behind. It was, of course, a year of frightful natural disasters. It will be remembered for the tsunami death toll which kept climbing as we entered 2005, Katrina, which devastated the Gulf Coast, and the earthquake, which is still an unfolding tragedy in Pakistan.

Terrible as they are, disasters do come, and we seem to have little control over where and when they strike.

What we can and must control is the growing and pervasive sense of public corruption, incompetence and dishonesty that became increasingly apparent in 2005.

We need not look far for examples.

We learned last year that two local political candidates and a political consultant ran ludicrous sham campaigns in order to receive public funding. At one point, testimony showed, a “doper” and a transient living under a bridge were recruited to run for office.

As the year ended, a state agency had recommended that a candidate and two of her campaign officers pay large penalties.

In December, we learned that our own Maine Department of Environmental Protection had concluded backroom deals to soften environmental regulations for a papermill that contributes pollution to the Androscoggin River. The deals were quickly scuttled and the department’s commissioner, Dawn Gallagher, resigned shortly afterward. Meanwhile, Friday, the state’s attorney general announced that the DEP had violated Maine’s open records law.

In Augusta, the Department of Health and Human Services spent the year trying to correct a massive billing system screw-up, which left providers of services unpaid for months on end. A full year later, it is still unclear that the problems have been completely solved.

Meanwhile, it remains impossible to get a real fix on whether the state’s Dirigo health insurance plan is really saving the state’s citizens any money.

But, of course, this is a small state, and these are relatively small examples of the overall lack of integrity.

In Washington, lobbyist Jack Abramoff is reportedly on the verge of agreeing to a plea bargain with prosecutors that will have him testifying against congressmen and their staffers. Some are predicting that five or six members of Congress will face prosecution.

Abramoff and his associates are accused of stealing millions from Indian tribes in return for lobbying Congress on gambling issues. It is a far-reaching scandal that should unfold over the course of 2006.

As the year closed, it was revealed that Enron executives distributed $105 million in bonuses to themselves in the hours before the company declared bankruptcy. Former Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay will go to trial in 2006.

In the final days of the year, a federal report revealed widespread fraud and mismanagement in the distribution of federal money after Hurricane Katrina. And, prosecutors in California began prosecuting chiselers who received Red Cross money while posing as Katrina victims.

A newspaper investigation in Florida and Louisiana showed that thousands of people who received federal money to help with hurricane damage suffered no damage at all. They were just trying to line their pockets with taxpayer money.

And, finally, as the year ended, another federal report revealed that most of the Small Business Administration loans made to help small business after the 9-11 terrorist attack went to firms that were obviously ineligible. Examples cited included loans made to tanning salons, resorts and fast food franchises thousands of miles away from New York and Washington.

In one case, a tanning salon in California argued for and received money because customers stayed home watching the disaster on TV rather than tanning.

Some worry that there is new culture of corruption that has taken hold in our country, not just in Washington, but across the land. The new ethic seems to be grab as much as you can, regardless of whether you deserve it.

The public’s faith in big business and big government has clearly been shaken in 2005.

Prosecutors and courts can hold people accountable after the fact. But only voters and ordinary citizens can demand better of elected leaders and government.