So Damn Much Money

That is the title of Robert G. Kaiser's book on the development and growth of lobbying in Washington. You owe it to yourself and to your children to read this book. It truly is important and I will explain that in a moment. You can get a clue from the book's subtitle, "The Triumph of Lobbying and the Corrosion of American Government". Get the most recent version in paperback.

Kaiser has structured the book around the story of Gerald S.J. Cassidy who pretty much "invented" modern lobbying, but the real story is how money now runs everything in the U.S. government. This is how Leon Panetta (now head of the CIA and former Congressman and top aide to Clinton) describes the situation in the book.

"Legalized bribery has become part of the culture of how this place operates," Paneta said on a visit to Washington. Today's members of the House and Senate "rarely legislate; they basically follow the money. They're spending more and more time dialing for dollars....the only place they have to turn is to lobbyists. Members have a whole list of names in their pockets at all times, and they just keep dialing. It has become an addiction that they can't break."

In case you think he is being hysterical, remember that over $4 BILLION !!!! was spent in the just past election. That is TWICE the amount spent on the previous most expensive election.

The book showed me just how I naive I have been. I thought that if we could just keep lobbyists off Capitol Hill, we could control the influence of special interests. Wrong, and wrong again! Two of Obama's first appointments were "former" lobbyists in spite of his promise to clean up the place.

It is an incredibly complicated problem. Here is why.

In the 13th Century, King Edward of England decreed that every Englishman had the right to petition the government. You can hardly argue with that.

But what if you are not very good at writing a petition, is it O.K. to hire someone else to write it?

But what if you are not very good at face to face meetings to present your petition,is it O.K. to hire someone else to present your petition?

Then how about hiring people to organize all the reasons why your petition should be granted.

And then throwing an elaborate and expensive party to explain to the right people why they should support your petition. Still O. K.?

Now if your Congress Persons are going to be able to support your petition, they have to get re-elected. Is it O.K. for you to give them money to get re-elected?

But you can't give anybody really big money (see $4 BILLION above), so how about hiring some people to go out and find people with truly deep pockets who can make contributions to your folks. Still O.K.?

Now theoretically, your Congress Person should be able to walk the fine ethical line here, but in reality, that almost never happens. What does happen is that your Congress Person is constantly raising dollars to keep the job. Here is how a week in Washington goes now days; Thursday, travel home. Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, raise money. Tuesday, travel back to Washington. Wednesday, attend to government affairs. Are you beginning to understand just how dysfunctional Washington has become?

Nancy Pelosi thinks this schedule is so onerous that she bought a Boeing 737 (with your money) to make the journey home every weekend easier.

So the fundamental problem is that everyone in Congress is so reliant on lobbyists for raising funds that prohibiting lobbyists from Capitol Hill will never work.

Here is how Kaiser describes the situation.

"Not addressing problems has become easy in a political environment distorted by money. Money allows politicians to run for office without mentioning important matters that affect ordinary Americans' lives. A pollster and a political consultant making slick thirty second commercials can fully compensate for a candidate who has no real philosophy of governance nor a coherent view of the world. The result is unreal politics--candidates winning or losing office on the basis of their positions on social issues essentially unrelated to governance, for example. In these three decades when money became more important in Washington, Congress has lost much of its effectiveness as a governing institution. Running for re-election became more important than running the country, or keeping an eye on the exercise of executive power--the roles the founders envisioned for the House and Senate. The quality of governance in the United States had declined palpably in these years."

Does this paragraph explain to you why nothing gets done in Congress these days?

Read the book for all the fascinating details and meet some very interesting people.

So what is the answer? Best idea I have found is Larry Lessig's idea (www.fixCongressfirst.org) that nobody,organization or company should be able to contribute more than $250 per candidate per election. See an earlier rant about a bill in Congress that says exactly that. However, we will have to overturn the Supreme Court to get that to happen.