Giving the Republicans Something to Do.
Here’s a question to ponder.
Why have we allowed our Federal Government to become so lucrative that lobbying firms are willing to pay people $600,000 a year to get money out of it?
There’s a follow-up question, too.
What might possess a person to spend millions of dollars of their own money to get a job that pays a fraction of what they’re spending?
The more I look at national politics, the more I’m convinced we have a money problem for only one reason: the Federal government is a lucrative cash cow where billions of dollars can be siphoned off to pet causes and personal bank accounts with nary a hint of credible oversight.
While the recent attempts at earmark reform has been a good start, it’s only the tiniest part of what we must insist happen in order to make Congress truly ours again. No law is going to help us with this. It’s our job and we can’t expect to pawn it off on the folks who are making money hand over fist off of us. Do you really believe the impetus to do this is going to come from the people who get rich off of our tax money? Really?
Then why on Earth have we expected them to do it?
I bring this up because, right now, there’s a Republican minority looking for something to do. Why not put it to work making the government ours again? Why not let them know that if they can truly shrink the size of the Federal government and put the money back in the control of the people who have earned it, they’ll be rewarded with re-election? Why not make it very clear that if they can stop using us as their personal ATMs, they’ll be rewarded with control of that government.
Seems like a pretty good mission for the loyal opposition to me.
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Category: Political Pontifications
"Ours?"
Who might that be?
Restoring accountability to government… Good idea… Sadly, Rep Jerry Lewis (R California), soon to be former Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, fired a bunch of auditors who were, by all accounts, doing a fine job of identifying corruption and waste in the government.
I guess if it took Nixon to go to China, it might take the corrupt and abusive GOP to fix corruption?
Gee did you just realize that catering to the fundies might not be the basis of sound government….what tipped you off?
The Republicans birthed this heinous monster, controlled it while in power and in patently naked displays succumbed to the greed of consumption. You think they're going to start turning over rocks?
Democrat 1: "What’s that weird sound? And it's getting louder!"
Democrat 2: "That's the squeal of the stuck pig!"
1: "That's the squeal of the irrelevant stuck pig!"
2: "I love that sound!"
1: "I love that sound and I am going to record it!"
2: "Make me a copy, that sound is a gift that will keep on giving!"
*starts tape recorder, sound keeps getting louder*
madmatt – Fundies? What?
Josh and Dave – You don't need government auditors to tell where the waste is in government. You simply stick a finger into the federal budget at random and you'll find it. Waste is, in fact, built into the system. It's something the system can't help but do. If you think this is a Republican thing, though, you're just badly uninformed. Note in the first link that these big lobbying dollars are going to folks who can work in a Democratic Congress – you know, the one we've had for most of the past 50 years. Unfortunately, thanks to a certain New Deal, the floodgates of tax money has been wide open for a few decades. Both parties have made themselves fat from it and have gained themselves political power based solely on their largess with our money and it's not likely to change in large ways anytime soon.
The only folks who are going to stem that tide at all are citizens motivated, believe it or not, by their own self-interest. We have our votes to use as a reward. Might as well spend them wisely, yes?
Businesses (who control the lobbying interests) are less interested in federal doleouts of money, directly, than in influencing things like taxation and regulation. So a company may spend millions in lobbying if they think they can get billions in business out of the legislative results. Often the handout comes not in monetary form, but in some legislation that helps tilt the playing field in a particular business's or industry's favor.
Not to say the federal budget ISN'T a treasure-trove ripe for such plunder; but this pales in significance to the real reasons for rampant lobbying cash, and campaign cash.
Certainly it's a problem on both sides of the aisles.
This is a great idea. I'm a very proud, and recently a very proud and happy Dem, but rooting out corruption, lobbying, pork is unquestionably the single most important government issue for all citizens. This is something I applaud. There's got to be a way to radically transform campaign financing, and if the Republicans come up with it — hell, better red than dead. I'm with you.
Absolutely a great idea. I seriously hope the GOP now pursues this. Speaking as a Democrat, I'm willing to see some temporary fundraising difficulties for the now-majority party, for the greater good that this would do for America.
Uh-huh. Tell me this, then. In the last six years, inflation has skyrocketed, unemployment has grown, and well-paying jobs have been axed so that a few CEOs can line their pockets at their employees' expenses. Bridges to nowhere. Disappearing war funds. The value of the dollar falling like a rock dropped off a cliff.
Tell me, who presided over this economic crisis? Who was in power the last six years? And now you want to put them back in power to… what? Finish draining the economy dry like a vampire from one of those old black-and-white movies?
No thanks. My father lost his job due to the Republicans and their economic insanity. No way will I allow that to happen to him again.
malady – Are you sure you're talking about this country? Maybe you need to turn your newspaper upside-down because you have most of those economic facts exactly backwards.
You're allowed to leave bitter comments, just not ones that are outright dumb.
Here's another question to ponder: Why hae you just figured this out now? Where have you been the last 6 years of this corrupt congress? And the recent attempts at earmark reform have not been a very good start, as you contend. In fact, they were even attempts. We basically have the same problem with pork now – it's just says its pork if its added via the Appropriations Committe, but not it its added by Armed Services.
Nice idea, Jimmie, but you're a few days late. I guess the rest of us stole your idea when we turned the keys over to the Dems.
Yep, tom, because goodness knows that you guys over there on the left were all about earmark reform when the bill was working its way through Congress. I nearly went deaf from all the protest when Senator Byrd put one of the two secret holds on the bill. By the way, speaking of the kindly former Klansman, how many edifices are named after him again?
Look, you have exactly zero room to throw stones on the left's behalf when it comes to pork and corruption. Right now, the Dems are sheltering a guy who actually had bribe money tucked away in his freezer and appropriated a military helicopter and National Guardsmen to pick up some goodies from his house in New Orleans. Admittedly, Dennis Hasters had a hand in some of that sheltering, but he's out of a Speaker job right now and doesn't have a prayer of regaining any meaningful leadership position in the minority either. So what's your Speaker-assumed going to do to help? Why, she's looking to nominate Alcee Hastings.
So yeah, I'm expecting all sorts of spending and corruption reform from the new majority.
Another visiting lefty here. As someone else pointed out upthread, it's not just the expenditure of our tax dollars that's at stake here — it's the regulatory power as well, or more so. One thing that too many pols on both sides of the aisle (clearly I got an idea which side might be more guilty of this, but as I'm visiting I'll just leave that alone) forget once they get entrenched in power, is that they work for us, not for big business. Free-market Republicans and libertarians should be just as concerned as we are over the distortions of the free market that come from government tampering. After our differences over how the war on terror would be best pursued, this is the single biggest difference between the parties. I could easily cross party lines (and have done) to support Repbulicans (Teddy Roosevelt types) who show that they get it that concentrations of power in corporate hands are as dangerous as concentrations of power in the form of big government. We lefty types — along with some of the libertarians — recognize that sometimes it takes government power to offset the over-concentration of corporate power, and to give power back to the individual citizen, where it belongs. Give us Republicans who vote that way, and you will get my support, and my votes — and those of of a lot of other voters whose loyalty is to the country and the citizenry, not the party.