The Cash Committee: How Wall Street Wins On The Hill
30 December 2009 4:27 pm by Taylor Marsh
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/29/the-cash-committee-how-wa_n_402373.html?page=1
This is a lengthy piece, but a must read for anyone interested in the Capitol hill money train.
According to a HuffPost analysis of the 243 people who’ve worked on the committee — including clerical and technology staff — since 2000, almost half of the 126 people who have left registered as lobbyists, mostly for the financial services industry.
And recruiting experienced Capitol Hill hands to work on K Street pays off in material ways. For example, it didn’t hurt the auto dealers’ chances of winning an exemption that a third of the industry trade group’s two dozen lobbyists are former Hill staffers.
Commercial banks, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, spent nearly $50 million lobbying in 2008 and dropped another $37 million in the first three quarters of 2009. They employed 417 federally-registered lobbyists.
And the revolving door turns in both directions. Sixteen of the committee’s 86 current staffers — including a good chunk of the senior staff — worked as lobbyists before coming to the committee. (And it’s not just Republicans; 12 of the 16 are Democrats.)
“The door doesn’t just revolve once,” says Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.). “They tend to go out and come back and go out again. It really does create a set of financial incentives, whether conscious or not.” …
[...]Of the 16 people on the committee payroll who previously worked as lobbyists, former clients include H&R Block, the New York Stock Exchange, the Bond Market Association, Wachovia, MetLife and Experian. One staffer lobbied on behalf of the National Employment Lawyers Association, yet no staffers have done lobbying gigs with consumer advocacy groups like the Consumer Federation of America, Public Citizen or U.S. PIRG. continue reading…
This post was submitted by Taylor Marsh.
Tags: Democrats, economy, investigations, Republicans
GM rehires lobbyists — and taxpayers foot the bill
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/GM-rehires-lobbyists—-and-taxpayers-foot-the-bill-8696869-80295032.html
What do you call a society where there seems to be a complete melding of government and corporations? It is not a democracy,it is not yet facism but could become so with enough wing nug wins. It is kind of a velvet facism, or faux democracy. People think that their vote has power but it really dosen’t. Not when congress does not care what the people think.
Reading around the web many are speculating that this has been the worst decade so far. To them I say read ,Grapes of Wrath. But it has been a decade horribulus. Some date the decline from 9/11. I date it from the Supreme Court subversion of the Constitution during Gore/Bush.