Lobbying

President Obama back in 2008:

“It's a choice between having a debate with the other party about who has the most experience in Washington or about who can change Washington,  because that's a debate that we can win."

When you read that and then see stories like this you really feel like you have been punched in the stomach:

Main Street has had a tough year, losing jobs and seeing little evidence of the economic revival that experts say has already begun.

But K Street is raking it in.

Washington’s influence industry is on track to shatter last year’s record $3.3 billion spent to lobby Congress and the rest of the federal government — and that’s with a down economy and about 1,500 fewer registered lobbyists in town, according to data collected by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Many lobbying firms have escaped the worst of the corporate belt-tightening, thanks, in large part, to the ambitious agenda set out by President Barack Obama — who, ironically, came to Washington with a pledge to break what he considered the undue influence of special-interest lobbyists.

Now couple that with this story:

More than $600 million has been spent so far this year trying to influence U.S. lawmakers working to overhaul the health-care system, reports show.

The health industry spent $396 million through Sept. 30, more than anyone else and up 9 percent over the same period a year ago, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based research group.

Those numbers don’t include spending on lobbying by insurers such as the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association and its member companies, which spent $16.7 million in the first nine months of 2009, compared with $16.2 million in all of 2008.

President Obama’s first term is almost 25% over. It’s time for that “change we can believe in”. Sadly though that change has been in him, not Washington.

McJoan over at DailyKos has put together one hell of a post highlighting the good and bad of the Senate health care bill. Bottom line – if we can get rid of the mandates I think we have something we can all stomach and then work on. In all honesty the mandates should be removed and used as a bargaining tool with the insurance companies at a later date. Of course that would mean that Democrats actually knew how to negotiate and we know that isn’t true.

A serious question to the bill supporters out there. Do you think if public options are brought up again that the very strong lobbying arm of the health insurance industry won’t work as hard to defeat them then as they are now? Short of having some serious reform on lobbying happen in the interim, I don’t see any real hope at a public option later.

Read this and see exactly who wrote it.

This is the same type of corruption that brought us the Medicare plan in 2003 that lead to disaster for millions of seniors.

Well that’s if you believe a new report that news organizations like the Washington Post is pushing as some sort of big news item:

After months of collaboration on President Obama's attempt to overhaul the nation's health-care system, the insurance industry plans to strike out against the effort on Monday with a report warning that the typical family premium in 2019 could cost $4,000 more than projected.

The critique, coming one day before a critical Senate committee vote on the legislation, sparked a sharp response from the Obama administration. It also signaled an end to the fragile detente between two central players in this year's health-care reform drama.

Industry officials said they intend to circulate the report prepared by PricewaterhouseCoopers on Capitol Hill and promote it in new advertisements. That could complicate Democratic hopes for action on the legislation this week.

Now what happened here is that the health care lobby got together with PricewaterhouseCoopers and had this report done. It’s all lobbyist driven, so we know that it must be 100% accurate – right? Yeah that’s what I thought.

Perhaps this wasn’t the right time to take on health care reform. Maybe it should have been done after we got rid of lobbyists. Of course given the greedy nature of our elected officials and their love for the heavy petting they receive from lobbyists that would never happen either.

The practice of leaving the Senate to become a lobbyist is all to common:

“It used to be that lawmakers were coy about any ideas they had about heading for K Street, waiting until their terms ended before announcing they were beginning a more lucrative career,” Politico’s Kenneth Vogel opines.

Not anymore.

Florida Sen. Mel Martinez — who recently quit the country’s top legislative chamber — joined up with lobbying firm DLA Piper less than two weeks after resigning his seat. Martinez was recently replaced by the former chief of staff to Republican Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, who is now seeking Martinez’ former seat.

Martinez resigned to “spend more time with his family”. Well I guess that is the most honest thing we have heard out of Washington in a long time. We just misconstrued what he meant by family. It was supposed to mean his extended family of lobbyists.

This is one of the greatest threats our young democracy faces. Lobbyists have far too much influence in Congress, and finding elected officials to stand up to that influence becomes harder when they have to fear chances of future employment outside of the realm of elected official.

What we need is true reform. We need the same type of agreements that countless U.S. workers have to abide by, known as “no compete clauses”. An elected official in our government should not be allowed to go work for a lobbying group for a minimum of two years after leaving office. Also there should be immediate triggers. If an elected official leaves office to work for a lobbyist an ethics panel should automatically review that officials past contacts and perks with that lobbying firm to insure the voters that the person wasn’t working in bad faith.

We are supposed to be a government by the people for the people, not one by the people for the special interests/lobbyists. Its actions like these that have helped fuel things like the tea parties, and the most dangerous threat to our government is that people on all sides of the aisle get fed up to the point that they decide to join in the tea parties, putting aside their political difference and engaging solely in their disgust for the contempt Washington shows towards the people of this land.

And by home, I of course mean lobbying:

Charles R. Black Jr., a top adviser to presidential candidate John McCain, is returning to his former profession: lobbying.

Mr. Black will go back to his former lobbying firm, BKSH and Associates, and will resume his old title of chairman. The firm, a subsidiary of WPP Group, announced the rehiring of Mr. Black to its employees on Friday.

I guess the one lobbying job he really failed at was lobbying the people to vote for McCain. Perhaps now he can just stay on K Street and take stock in the fact that the American people reject him and his views.

The food industry lobbied Bush for less regulations and got it. What has that yielded? Lower prices? Hell no! Instead we have been plagued with one outbreak after another of food related illnesses. In turn that has cost the food industry millions of dollars in loss revenue.

There are a few lessons to take from this. We have the obvious, which is the title of this post, but the not so obvious need to be mentioned. One - government regulations are a must. They aren't there to hurt free trade, they are there to protect the people. That would be the people who are the backbone of free trade.

Secondly, and most importantly, the almighty lobbying power needs to be squashed. This is what it has given us - people sick and dying from their food. George Bush now has the health and lives of these people on his hands. It's just another example of how Bush, along with the GOP, don't give a damn about you or me. Well that's unless we have the letters inc. behind our names and can grease their pockets some.