Alan Caruba
I am frequently and repeatedly surprised that Americans still do not understand what goes on in  Washington, D.C. despite the millions of words published and uttered about the place.
In an interesting new book by John Harwood and Gerald F. Seib, two leading journalists with credentials to spare and longtime observers of the public and private ways that Washington, D.C. actually operates, “Pennsylvania Avenue: Profiles in Backroom Power”, they point out that, “At heart, the business of Washington is dividing the federal pie in all its forms, taxing, spending, contracting, regulating.”
As Harwood and Seib further note, “Even in periods of ostensible retrenchments, that business has grown. Since 1990, scholar Paul Light has estimated, direct and indirect federal-government employment has swelled to 14.6 million from 12.6 million.”
With so many millions, nay trillions, at stake, why would anyone be surprised that a virtual army of people are employed to influence where the money is allocated? In my own office there is a directory called the Government Affairs Yellow Book. It’s a who’s who and, in 2007, it included “more than 24,000 government affairs experts who represent the interests of leading businesses, professional organizations, interest groups, and governmental institutions” as well as listing who’s who in federal, state, and local governments.
In Washington, D.C. today you will find representatives of more than 625 corporations, plus 125 subsidiaries or divisions, each with distinct government affairs operations. There are more than 160 financial institutions and 46 subsidiaries or division. You will find representatives of 714 professional organizations, 41 labor unions, and more than 230 interest groups and think tanks.
All of these people and groups keep a close eye on the 435 members of the House of Representatives and the 100 members of the Senate. They read every line of every piece of proposed legislation that ultimately will affect, for good or ill, every aspect of life in America. Lobbyists often propose and even write some of that legislation. Then they go looking for elected officials to sponsor it, virtually all of whom are recipients of political action committee largess.
Senators and Representatives engage in a continual effort to secure campaign contributions for themselves and their parties. They are literally assigned specific fund-raising amounts by party leaders. “The minimum amount for those representing the poorest rural or inner-city districts was $200.000.” Others in politically powerful positions are expected to individually raise millions.
This brings me to Sen. Barack Obama’s most constant campaign theme. As noted by Politico.com back in December, “It could be Barack Obama’s ‘axis of evil’ (is) lobbyists, political action committees and corporations.”
At a rally in Iowa, Obama said, “The days of corporate lobbyists setting the agenda in Washington are over.” Aside from the fact that this is pure hogwash—and he knows it, Obama’s antipathy to American corporations, the backbone of the nation’s economy, employer of millions, and the source of billions in tax revenue, is troubling and reflects more than just a liberal bias, but one that suggests a strong socialist, i.e., anti-capitalist point of view.
However, in December, according to public documents, three of the political aides on his campaign payroll were registered lobbyists for dozens of corporations, including Wal-Mart, British Petroleum and Lockheed Martin. The movement back and forth between lobbying and serving in campaigns and in government is constant and an accepted way of life in Washington, D.C. Former Senators and Representatives often do not return home, but instead set up offices in town to become lobbyists.
Even Michelle Obama echoes the anti-corporate theme of her husband. In March, speaking at a rally, she said, “We left corporate America, which is a lot of what we are asking young people to do. Don’t go into corporate America. You know, become teachers, work for the community, be a social worker, be a nurse…move out of the money making industry, into the helping industry.”
The problem with this is that Michelle Obama has contributed significantly to the family budget by working for corporations, most recently for a hospital where her salary was $311,000. According to their tax returns, she earned $51,200 as a director on the board for Treehouse and earned $217,618 working for the corporation that owns the University of Chicago Hospitals.
If the reek of hypocrisy is beginning to reach your nostrils, it is because this mesmerizing candidate offering “change” and his wife have been cashing in the old-fashioned way and employing the skills of an army of political operatives to make their way to the White House.
Obama’s distaste for corporations has not gone unnoticed on Wall Street. As Lawrence Kudlow, radio and television commentator, has pointed out, “Markets don’t like Obama. If he wins alongside Democratic gains in the House and Senate, taxes are going up big time. This is especially true for the capital-gains tax, which is the single most important levy on assets of all kind, including stocks.”
Obama may not like corporations, but he loves Big Government. Kudlow noted that “He wants to spend $150 billion on a green-energy plan. He wants to establish an infrastructure investment bank to the tune of $60 billion. He wants to expand health insurance by roughly $65 billion.” By February, based on what he had said on the campaign trail, “The Obama spend-o-meter” was already up to around $800 billion.
If you think the federal government is big now, you ain’t seen nothing yet!
This should be a significant cause for concern for every taxpayer and voter in the nation. The tax cuts that helped swell the government coffers during the Bush administration will end in an Obama administration. The earnings of the millions who have invested in American business and industry will be further skimmed to pay for his Big Government proposals.
“Obama’s program is anti-growth”, warns Kudlow. If you think the American economy hasn’t already been harmed by the mortgage-loan debacle, the declining value of homes, and by the rise in the cost of oil, a government under President Obama, supported by a Democrat-controlled Congress would crash the economy for everyone from the corporations to small business owners on Main Street.
It may seem odd to say so, but I take comfort knowing that Washington, D.C. is wall-to-wall lobbyists and government representatives from the many sectors of our economy. They may be the only people capable of saving us from a very uncertain future if Obama were to be the next President of the United States of America.
Alan Caruba writes a daily blog at factsnotfantasy.blogspot. Every week, he posts a column on the website of The National Anxiety Center.
Alan Caruba Bio and Archives
Trackback(0)
 |
TrackBack URI for this entry
Subscribe to this comment's feed