[throwaway313313]

Ok, thought experiment. The people that inspect buildings can condemn them.

How would you like a system to develop in the city that unless you bribe city officials they each year randomly choose some local owners with buildings to condemn and then hint that they should be bribed. Of course to make it plausible, they choose buildings that they can come up with some kind of justification for.

Naturally, since they are that creative, this would develop into a system where they make buildings develop all kinds of inspection problems that they wish to take for their crime ring. A very common super broad area is ADA compliant ramps, markings, entrances, bathrooms. The building code has changed over the years and within a building department and between cities what the inspectors expect you to do wildly varies. When you go to get totally unrelated work done an inspector or the planning department can require you to make ADA upgrades.

Over time it is natural for some portion of the building stock to require work in the form of maintenance for just about every aspect of the buildings. Think of all of the opportunities they have to get your generous endorsement in the form of money, since this in this world you've created city officials demanding money is totally fine.

Pray any building or business in the city doesn't attract their attention!

[lend000]

Accepting bribes would still be illegal... so your premise is flawed.

[throwaway313313]

The parent's premise was "Why is it illegal to bribe an official to do their job?"

The thought experiment is "What if it was legal to bribe city officials for matters involving their job, explore what would happen."

[lend000]

Quote from the parent:

"It seems like the only crime should be in accepting the bribe, not in offering it"

[Lammy]

I bribe police/DA to overlook my other bribes

[henriquez]

I tried this once but the layers of government you have to bribe becomes overly burdensome after awhile; first it was city planning officials, then the volunteer run “housing board” and associated nonprofits. Then there was a county restriction on vacation rentals that I had to talk to a sheriff to get around, a contribution to the governor’s re-election PAC, then the DOJ (and it’s not enough to bribe DAs anymore, you have to bribe FBI officials too). By the time I had bribed 48 layers of government bureaucrats I didn’t have enough money left to build my housing development. The system is broken.