Lobbyists Are Having An Extremely Profitable Year - $128+ Billion

Today is August 1, and this year has already seen some eventful times. We have experienced the passage of a comprehensive medical bill; government bailouts of banks and major corporations; a catastrophic oil spill; the firing of a great military leader; the continuation of wars and rumors of others; and the usual Congressional bickering and scandals.

It should come as no surprise, that the Washington lobbyists have had a banner year thus far. The Washington Post reports that the revenue for some lobbying firms was more than $128 billion. This was a result of three pieces of legislation: Financial Services Overhaul, Climate Change, and the Health-Care bills.

There should be no doubt that corporate interests are hard at work with these lobbyists. The Post mentions three of those corporations as: Dow Chemical, The Mortgage Investors Coalition, and The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity as being major clients of these lobbying firms. Each with their own interests to maintain.

Now would be a good time to look back at a story that Bloomberg reported last year. During the period of Congressional debate on health-care reform, for every member of Congress, there were six lobbyists. The largest group of lobbyists that were bending our Representative’s and Senator’s ears were none other than lobbyists employed by the pharmaceutical industry.

We the people elect the members of the Congress to represent our interests. Yet, how many of the people can garner as much political influence as the lobbyists? I recently wrote an article about how the US Supreme Court ruled corporations have the right to free speech when it comes to Congressional access. One of the fears of that ruling is of the age old activity of where there is money and power, there is greed. Where there is greed, there is corruption. We must be forever diligent that those corporate interests do not supersede the interests of We The People.

Sources:
The Washington Post
Bloomberg

[edit on 1-8-2010 by Wayne60]