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January 08, 2006
Political Corruption and Lobbyist $$$
Political Nut, whose blog header claims to offer "a conservative but fair insight into American politics and political campaigns," has an interesting post up about political lobbying and party affiliation.
Citing Open Secrets as his source:
In the last 14 years1. Democrats have received more money annually from lobbyists by a 6-2 margin
2. Democrats have received 53% of the lobbyist dollars during that time
Hmmm... something doesn't add up here. If Dems received more lobbyist money annually by a 75/25 margin, how then could they only have received 53% of that money? And then there's the fact that "lobbyist" money is far from the only, or even largest... let alone primary, source of special interest influence over elected officials.
Over that same 14 year timespan, Open Secrets graph shows that lobbyist cash never ranked higher than the 10th largest source of special interest funds being given, and that was just for the current election cycle. Earlier in the 14 year period lobbyist cash ranked as low as 34th. As recently as the 2000 cycle it only ranked 27th highest. And that still doesn't take into account the other means of special interest influence, via $$$, over politicians such as PACs and Soft Money (now called "Levin Funds").
Political Nut goes on to sum up thusly:
The problem of corruption is not partisan. It is an American problem.The problem of lobbyist influence is a growing problem. It is a long-existing problem. It is a bipartisan problem.
I certainly agree with his larger point. But, he approaches it as a partisan by attempting to demonstrate first that Dems are more beholdin' to special interests money and the corruption that stems from that relationship. It seems self-evident that he wanted to stake a claim to being anti-corruption. But to do that he had to counter the current Abrahmoff/DeLay/Cunningham/Frist scandals in order to make the case that it isn't a Republican problem.
It seems to me that a fair assessment of this particular situation would be to say that both parties certainly are beholden to special interest $$$. It's an aspect of the two-party system that has always made me uncomfortable and contributes to why I am and remain an Indie.
That said... it seems to me that Political Nut's attempted defense of the GOP notwithstanding that right here and right now this is much more of a GOP problem than it is a bipartisan problem. The reason is in how the GOP have acted compared to how the Dems acted when they were in control of Congress and/or the White House. The GOP has rammed thru a variety of tax cutting schemes that have materially benefitted the corporations and interests that those very same lobbyists work for. And then there's the new Medicaid drug benefit program (brain child of Bush et al) in which Republicans wrote it up in such a way as to actually prevent the program from trying to use the free market principle of supply and demand to negotiate for lower drug prices. If that's not a HUGE give away to the big drug companies then I don't know what it is.
Being on the take is one thing. The other half of the equation, which Political Nut completely ignored, is how those cash favors get repaid. He likely avoided that part of the problem because it would have only undermined his attempted defense of the GOP.
Posted by Kevin at January 8, 2006 01:33 PM
