The Dark Politics of Lobbying

February 17th I posted an entry on lobbying and our housing crisis. Lobbying is back in the news. The next five paragraphs were taken from my previous entry.

Bribe: noun. Anything given or serving to persuade or induce. Verb. To influence or corrupt by a bribe.

Lobby: n. A group of persons who work to conduct a campaign to influence members of a legislative body. V. To solicit or try to influence members of a legislature.

Lobbyist: A person who tries to influence legislation on behalf of a special interest.

If money is given to a political candidate or an office-holding politician before, during or after being contacted by a lobbyist for that organization, then the candidate or elected official has been bribed for services rendered or some service implied to be rendered in the future.

If an individual or organization gives money to both political parties or candidates running for the same office then they are, by caveat, guilty of bribery.

It’s been reported that some large corporations in this country spent hundreds of millions lobbying successfully for a tax break enacted in 2004 and got a 22,000-percent return on that investment -- proof that for those who can afford it, hiring a lobbyist can pay handsome dividends.

Figures compiled by professors at the University of Kansas offer a picture of how lobbying is undermining our democracy. It offers a glimpse of how the lobbying business works, and why.

President Barack Obama has vowed to control lobbyists' influence, but the industry is booming.

Companies and interest groups spent $3.42 billion lobbying Congress and the federal government in 2008, the last year for which such figures are available, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. That's a 14 percent jump from the previous year.

And why do they spend this money? Because companies are getting what they pay for when they hire professional lobbyists.

Hui Chen of the University of Colorado, David C. Parsley of Vanderbilt University and Ya-Wen Yang of the University of Miami found that, on average, a company's income rose by more than a half-percent for every 10 percent more it spent on lobbying. That translates into many millions of dollars for a large firm.

The Carmen Group, a midsize lobbying firm that has lobbied for private companies like HealthSouth as well as local governments, hospitals and universities, among others, markets itself as an outfit that brings clients an "extraordinary" return of investment of 100 to 1 or better, according to its Web site.

"We play a decisive role in realizing projects that deliver value ranging from hundreds of thousands all the way through billions of dollars," the site says.

Our elected officials are taking money for their decisions. This is wrong. Your representatives were elected to represent their constituents, not major American corporations.

“Companies are "spending big money, but ... it pales in comparison to the potential profit they can reap if they're successful," said Sheila Krumholz of the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks money in politics. The nonpartisan group recently released a study comparing the amount spent by bailed-out banks on political contributions and lobbying with the amount of money they got from the Wall Street rescue fund, known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). The results produced eye-popping rates of return, an overall 258,449 percent for the $114 million they spent on campaign donations and lobbying.”

Senator Richard Selby (R-Al) accepted $565,000 in contributions from the financial services industry (2007-2008).

Representative Barney Frank (D-Mass) accepted $948,000 over the same period from the financial-services industry.
These two politicians rant and rave on television against companies in the financial service industry, but then they vote for these massive bailouts.

When will we as citizens understand it’s not what politicians say that matters it’s what they do. And how they vote.

Where does this behavior end?