I can't tell what's more outrageous and disgusting: The fact that lobbyists have been permitted to serve on the federal advisory boards that oversee policies affecting their clients, the fact that that has been occurring with almost no Establishment outcry for years, or the fact that lobbyists have the sheer audacity to publicly scream at the Obama administration for trying to end this form of institutionalized corruption.
That latter point is, of course, the good news announced on the White House's website on September 23rd:
We wanted to take this opportunity to announce the next step in the President's efforts to reduce the influence of special interests in Washington. The White House has informed executive agencies and departments that it is our aspiration that federally-registered lobbyists not be appointed to agency advisory boards and commissions. These appointees to boards and commissions, which are made by agencies and not the President, advise the federal government on a variety of policy areas.
The administration had previously been criticized - rightly, IMHO - for issuing a series of waivers on its much-touted lobbyist/ethics reforms. So this move is a welcome change in direction that suggests the White House is getting (at least a tiny a bit) more serious about rooting out some of the worst corruption in the government.
Then again, the reaction on K Street to even this minimal clean-government step shows just how institutionalized that corruption is. Though, as OMB Watch notes, there will still be many ways for corporate interests to get around this latest directive, those interests are nonetheless going crazy.
Over here and here you have corporate trade associations freaking out. Over there you have the American League of Lobbyists screaming bloody murder. And at U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk's press conference last week, he was barraged with questions about how he could dare try to remove lobbyists from the major federal advisory boards that have shaped our destructive "free" trade policies.
Kirk answered the question judiciously, saying that while "There is a role for representatives and lobbyists in the development of the policymaking process, the president felt that that role in Washington had been enlarged to perhaps an unhealthy degree."
That's an understatement, if there ever was one. On trade policy alone, CongressDaily estimates that of the 700 representatives serving on government advisory panels, about one third are registered lobbyists.
To be sure, some might say that hey, it's not a big deal for lobbyists to serve on advisory panels, because those panels are only "advisory." But that label is deliberately deceptive.
These panels issue very influential reports and edicts with the stamp, seal and credibility of the federal government. These are documents that begin the long process of policy formation and that, for example, congresspeople hold up in floor debates as proof that they are doing the right thing. And so the reason why corporate lobbyists are going crazy about being barred from these advisory panels is because they know that those panels - despite their "advisory" billing - are extremely powerful in corrupting policy at its very origin. Remove the lobbyists from these positions, and you begin removing the spores that ultimately germinate into stuff like NAFTA, the Medicare prescription drug giveaway, corporate tax loopholes, etc.
To that end, I expect this story isn't over by a long shot. The anger about this modest proposal is so intense on K Street, you may see the administration back off. I sure hope not - and I give the White House a lot of credit for moving forward knowing full well this would be the reaction.
But that gets back to the original point of this post: just how deeply rooted corruption really is in Washington. It has become such a part of Beltway culture that lobbyists now feel fully entitled to be able to corrupt public policy with the seal of the government - they expect it so much, in fact, that they spaz out whenever anyone tries to stop it.
David Westin: My Response To House Republicans' Criticism Of Our Upcoming Health Care Special
Sadly, some see every issue as material for a sort of political high theatre. I would have thought that a subject as important as the health care received by the American people would rise above this sorry spectacle.
No, I will not give it out.
No, you do not need to know
Yes, you will whine about it
In the early eighties, I think. That's how it looks, to me... (But then, I was born in 1970, so dating that problem, based on my own observations, from right when I was first old enough to be aware of it, is a little dubious...)
(Does simply agreeing, make them stop...?)
But in this case you can't say the fox is guarding the hen house. Because those organisms are not hens anymore.
GMO is not good for anyone. We need to go back to farming in our own back yards, getting with friends and neighbors to buy meat we know we can trust when we purchase it from a neighbor. Maybe raise chickens in our back yards?
Read the label on most cans and boxes and try to figure out what you are really eating. It is pretty scarey!
I think we should send in the FBI. Wonder if they have lobbyists? But can anybody --even the FBI -- be trusted in that Hell hole? The road to Hell is broad, paved, well-traveled and is named Pennsylvania Avenue.
I hope President Obama will stand firm. If he gets lonely in Washington, he might want to call Rep. Grayson over for dinner. They can encourage each other as the only two sets of steel balls in Helltown.
I've been researching what it would take to target some of the worse offenders in Congress who are in bed with the lobbyists (like Sen. Baucus). Only 18 states and D.C. have laws allowing them to recall senators. Other methods are impeachment, censure and expulsion -- not gonna happen!
Our congressmen/women keep selling us down the river because they know they are operating with impunity. Senators get six years, $1,044,000 across the table and millions under the table. But we're all too busy with our important stuff: working, shopping, he-ing and she-ing, partying, vegetating, football tailgating, nascar following. We doesn't have time to worry about no stankin' corruption!!!
The biggest red herring of Republicanism: small government. Yeah, right.
Diogenes, a beggar who made his home in the streets of Athens, made a virtue of extreme poverty. He is said to have lived in a large tub, rather than a house, and to have walked through the streets carrying a lamp in the daytime, claiming to be looking for an honest man. He eventually settled in Corinth where he continued to pursue the Cynic ideal of self-sufficiency: a life which was natural and not dependent upon the luxuries of civilization. Believing that virtue was better revealed in action and not theory, his life was a relentless campaign to debunk the social values and institutions of what he saw as a corrupt society.
Where is such a man to be found in today's America? I sure hope it is revealed to be President Obama.
Love him, hate him, Obama has done something that no other president has ever done.
He's made politics THE STORY.
I don't think hes been weak, or waffled for one second on his beliefs. I am more convinced than ever that he has been putting on an act and biding his time. He showed his backbone when he ordered the pirates taken out.
What he's done is allowed the Repubs, the Blue dogs, the lobbyists and the Big Money to play their games, and kept the American focus firmly on Washington watching it all.
Reform of any sort may not happen this year. If any does, it's likely to be gutted and catering to Big Money.
But that's sort of the point. Washington has been playing Business as usual, and doesn't seem to realize that one thing is VERY VERY Different this time.
We the People have been watching. Like Big Brother, in reverse.
And when We the People turn out every single congress person we watched sell us down the river next year, an awful lot of lobbyists and Big Money interests are going to suddenly find out that Business as Usual will no longer be allowed.
It won't be partisan. And it won't be pretty. It's going to be a political bloodbath missing only guillotines.
And it will be because Obama wouldn't allow America to look away and stop paying attention.
They put him on a pedestal during the campaign with the firm intention of cutting it out from under him.. unfortunately the pugs didn't count on millions of ordinary people running blocking against the repug chainsaw... so now they are doing everything they can to cut it down to show Obama fail..
Keep those chainsaws away from the pedestal and never again allow the right wing control.
I agree. That in itself is quite an accomplishment compared to
previous Presidents who just grinned, shrugged or waved as
they moved on to the next photo-op.
Of course there will always be those who prefer the activity of
passing judgment on those who do rather than doing something
themselves.
Then make libel laws that DEMAND that people prove what they SAY before they say it on air. Make it a jailable offense to lie on national tv, radio OR the internet as a means to slander another person or SCARE others. It would HAVE to be a JAILABLE offense because FINES mean NOTHING to the obscenely RICH except an inconvenience.
corruption is not a pugilistic contest.
You only see its effects after the fact, not its birth
certificate nor its actual physical address.
Publicly financed campaigns. Make all campaigns publicly financed. Take away ALL private money and let politicians rise or sink on the merits of their ideas ALONE.
why should congressmen miss out on all of those new
job opportunities AFTER their 4 or 8 years?
This is a matter for the administration, not for the legislation.
I have a feeling Tim Geithner and Larry Summers fit this criteria quite well and should be run out of Washington on a rail, then tarred and feathered!