A week after the election of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States, the chief of his transition team, John Podesta, served notice that the president would make good on his campaign promise of change in the area of ethics. In a statement, Mr. Podesta said:

President-elect Barack Obama has pledged to change the way Washington works and curb the influence of lobbyists. … During the campaign, federal lobbyists could not contribute to or raise money for the campaign. … [T]he president-elect is taking those commitments even further by announcing the strictest, and most far reaching ethics rules of any transition team in history.”

Presumably, that means President Obama wishes to end the pay-to-play philosophy that pervades the practice of politics. Well, he’s got some explaining to do, because what he promises is not always what he does.
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You’re a coalition of multinational corporations. Imagine this deal: Invest $1 in lobbying. Get a return on investment of $220. Save $100 billion on taxes, too. Nice, eh?

That’s the conclusion of three University of Kansas professors who undertook an empirical analysis of the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 to study rates of return for money spent on lobbying, reported The Washington Post in an April 12 story by Dan Eggen.

This law — this shady excuse for a law with a name only charlatans could love — allowed companies that had earned profits overseas to inexpensively bring that money back into the States. The customary tax rate on such profits was 35 percent. But this elegantly named process — repatriation of profits — gave companies a one-time chance four years ago to haul the money home, paying only 5.25 percent.

The act was a tax holiday sought by a coalition of companies, primarily big pharmaceutical and high-technology corporations, all because they sought to pay little or no taxes on profits generated overseas — and they concocted a successful scheme to pull it off.
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At the moment, it’s a bad time to be a political fundraiser. The deep pockets of corporate and other donors normally counted on to keep the election money machine well-oiled have suddenly gone shallow.

According to Paul Kane and Chris Cillizza of The Washington Post, donations are down — way down. Consider the first two months of 2005, 2007, and 2009: $48.8 million in ‘05; $41.6 million in ‘07; and a paltry $30.7 million this year. That’s expected, write the Post reporters, in the early months of odd-numbered years after presidential or mid-term contests.

It’s known as “donor fatigue.” It’s particularly bad at the moment because so many candidates dunned so many donors in an election year that saw the presidential election cost more than a billion dollars.
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Perhaps because my middle name is “Gullible,” I’d like to trust my new representative in Congress to act wisely, unselfishly, and nobly on my behalf. I’d like to trust his 434 brethren and the 100 senators to do so as well. I’d like the lofty words they speak in the wells of the House and Senate to be accompanied by similarly lofty, well-thought-out actions designed solely to improve the lot in life of me and my 312 million fellow citizens.

But … I doubt it. An obstacle lies squarely in the path of politicians’ ability or willingness to act sensibly and selflessly. That obstacle is money. Or, rather, the pursuit of it to grasp and maintain power, prestige, and wealth.

Despite any number of outrageous conflations of influential wealth and influenced legislation, and despite the protestations of the masses with fewer dollars over the power of the few with many dollars, and despite the laughable “reforms” Congress attempts occasionally, money is not going to leave politics.
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“Psssst. Hey, you. Yeah, you, over there with the really fat checkbook.

“Wanna make some serious money real fast — and legal? Yeah, really — legally.

“All you gotta do is give me about $114 million. That’s all — and I’ll give you an ROI of 258,449 percent. Yep. You heard right — 258,449 percent. You’ll make $295.2 billion.

“That work for you?”
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Much of President Barack Obama’s pre-election stump speeches focused on the perceived need to reinvigorate America’s moral leadership around the world. Indeed, rhetoric on the White House website says, “President Obama and Vice President Biden will renew America’s security and standing in the world through a new era of American leadership.”

Critical first steps, many would argue, were his appointments of former rival and New York senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of State and adviser Susan Rice as ambassador to the United Nations. The president has sent former senator George Mitchell to the Mideast and Richard Holbrook to Afghanistan and Pakistan as special envoys. So far, so good.

Presidents appoint ambassadors to represent American interests abroad. Presumably presidents appoint seasoned, experienced foreign diplomats to such delicate tasks. So President Obama has dozens of ambassadors to appoint. And the first rumor is … Dan Rooney as ambassador to Ireland? The owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers and president and co-founder of The American Ireland Funds?
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There are over 25 million businesses in the US but companies which make up the Standard & Poor 500 contribute over 26% of the US government’s annual $2.4 trillion tax take. These 500 businesses are 6.5% of the total number of listed businesses .

Across the Atlantic, in the UK, the FTSE 100 index of companies contributes 3.3% of Her Majesty’s tax take. Even if you add in the salaries and other taxes that these companies manage on behalf of Treasury, it is no more than 7%.

The US taxation system is what is known as progressive; it falls more heavily on the wealthy than on the poor. The intention is that it is to be fairer. And so, in the US, the top 10% of taxpayers contribute 70% of taxes, and the top 1% contribute 40% of taxes. Conversely, the bottom 40% of registered taxpayers actually received more money back through tax grants than they contributed through their incomes.

Depending on how you feel about rich people, you could be cheered or charged about such information. However, you shouldn’t be surprised at the consequences. Full Story »

Yo, Barack! Hey, John! I know you’ve been busy, cruising around the country, giving those same ol’ stump speeches over and over again. (Doncha get tired of that? We sure do.)

Park for a minute and tell us something. After you’re elected president, what are you gonna do with those buffoons running the Minerals Management Service that collects each year oil and gas royalties of $10 billion from oil companies? The Interior Department’s inspector general says top officials there have been involved in “financial self-dealing, accepting gifts from energy companies, cocaine use and sexual misconduct.”

And while you’re at it, what about Nancy Nord, the acting chairwoman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission? You plan to let her keep on defending “trips she took that were paid for by the industries that her agency regulates“? You gonna let her keep on telling Congress that her agency does not need a larger budget to police the the industries that produce the nation’s consumer goods?
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Well, well, well….

There’s been a spurt of 527 activity on behalf of Sen. John McCain, but Barack Obama campaign has suddenly gone silent on the subject.That’s because, after of year of telling donors not to contribute to 527 groups, of encouraging strategists not to form them and of suggesting that outside messaging efforts would not be welcome in Obama’s Democratic Party, Obama’s strategists have changed their approach. Full Story »

Jack Abramoff was sentenced to four years in prison today, much less than the maximum time for his crimes.  You may remember him as the man who bribed, stole, and otherwise slimed his way to the top of the K Street lobbying establishment in Washington.  He also defrauded the Chippewas, an Amerind tribe, of tens of millions of dollars in a scheme with a PR firm he called the self-congratulatory name, “High Five!”  Yet, in a letter filed with US District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle, Abramoff insists:

I am not a bad man (although to read all the news articles one would think I was Osama Bin Laden), but I did many bad things. Full Story »

As entertaining a diversion from the demise of the American dream the presidential contest between Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain has become, what with thousands of mass media hairpieces focused intently on their every vague utterance, let’s keep in sight this equally entertaining sideshow: A third of the seats in the U.S. Senate and all of the seats in the House of Representatives are available for the public’s inspection, validation or rejection in November.

The percentage of respondents in national polls who believe Congress is doing a good job is buried in the teens, even lower than approval ratings for President Bush, now trending in the mid- to high-20s. The re-election rate for House members in 2006 was 94 percent (down from 98 percent in ‘04); the rate for senators was 79 percent in 2006 (down from 96 percent in ‘04), according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Incumbency rules. Many voters might argue that collectively, members of Congress are greedheads mired in the trappings of power wrapped tightly around them by corporate lobbyists paid millions of dollars to either extract largesse from the Hill or prevent lawmaking or regulatory rule-writing that would be bad for business. But …
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Young man, you have the gift of gab. Keep it up and some day you’ll be President of the United States.

— an old Republican to a young Warren G. Harding after his first political speech, according to a New York Times obituary of President Harding; Aug. 3, 1923.

I predicted that New Orleans would come back as a stronger and better city. That’s the prediction I made. I also pledged that we’d help. And $126 billion later, three years after the storm — we’ve helped deliver $126 billion of U.S. taxpayers’ money. (Applause.) And I thank you for applauding on that statement, but I know you’re applauding the American taxpayer. A lot of people around the country care deeply about the people down here. And so it was — you know, it was money that we were happy to spend.

— President Bush, speaking at the historic Jackson Barracks in New Orleans on the recovery of the Gulf Coast region three years after Hurricane Katrina; Aug. 20.
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My favorite political reality game show — my congressman’s “Fix Washington Project” — has entered the voting stage.

S&R readers might recall that Rep. John R. “Randy” Kuhl, R-N.Y., in June sent me and his other constituents a franked, four-color mailer announcing his latest scheme for improving government (you know, the task that taxpayers pay him and his 434 House confreres $169,000 a year each to accomplish).

His gimmick: Voters should send him their ideas for “fixing Washington”; he and his staff would select the top five and put them up for a vote on his House Web site. After “voting” ends Sept. 12, the winner, as Rep. Kuhl wrote in his monthly e-mailed newsletter, the Kuhl Khronicle, “will be introduced on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. I am thrilled to see my constituents getting directly involved in the legislative process.”

The continuing unconscionable abdication of independent, intelligent thought by my representative in Congress leaves me dumbfounded.
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It’s my day off, so I was home, and the ground starts rockin’ and rollin’. So I thought, ‘You know what? I’m gonna go to the bar, drink with my bros, and if this is the Big One, I’ll go down with a cold one.’

— Ed’s Pub patron Michael Gallardo after a 5.4-magnitude earthquake shook the Los Angeles area; July 30.
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I don’t have pet peeves. I have major, psychotic hatreds.

— George Carlin, who died early this week at age 71; June 23
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Expect the average net worth of a member of Congress — now about $1.5 million — to take another leap upward. That’s because five members of the Supreme Court decided that wealth, as speech, cannot be regulated. In doing so, the Roberts court continued to dismantle the “fairness” logic of past congressional attempts at campaign finance reform by labeling such reforms as censorship.

In a 5-4 decision, the Court ruled that it is unconstitutional to allow candidates facing self-financing, wealthy opponents to accept larger-than-normal contributions. This decision will decrease the number of financially viable congressional candidates.
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My Republican congressman, in the spirit of fully representative democracy, has discovered how to best serve his constituents: Let ‘em vote on what he ought to do.

Rep. John R. “Randy” Kuhl, R-N.Y., has sent his constituents a franked, four-color mailer announcing the “Fix Washington Project”:

Congressman Kuhl wants to hear from you. Between May 16th and July 18th, Congressman Kuhl is seeking your input and ideas regarding any federal issue. Residents of the 29th district can e-mail, call or fax their ideas to the Congressman’s office. Once all of the ideas have been submitted, five will be chosen and posted on Rep. Kuhl’s website to allow his constituents to from the list of five. The idea that gets the most votes will be introduced on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. [emphasis in original; press release]

Rep. Kuhl’s mailing says, “Now is the time to fix Washington.” Now? He’s been in office for 43 months and he’s just figured out now is the time?
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Exxon Mobil is acting like a dinosaur now, not adopting to a changing environment.

— Stephen Viederman, a New York shareholder, after “Exxon Mobil’s chairman and chief executive, Rex W. Tillerson, defeated a shareholder effort … to take away one of his jobs at an annual meeting punctuated by a debate of the company’s policy toward renewable energy and global warming”; May 28.

Despite significant challenges in the U.S. market, we continue to reshape our business for long-term success. This attrition program gives us an opportunity to restructure our U.S. work force through the entry-level wage and benefit structure for new hourly employees.

— from a statement by Troy A. Clarke, the president of G.M.’s North American operations, announcing that “19,000 hourly workers — a quarter of a unionized work force that already has been drastically pared down — have accepted buyouts“; up to 16,000 of these $28-an-hour workers may be replaced by “entry-level” non-assembly workers making $14 an hour; May 30; emphasis added.
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You’ve probably noticed a relatively new phenomenon in American politics: The Never-Ending Presidential Campaign. (Might make a good animated flick, eh?)

And you’ve likely thought Gee, this has been going on for-evuh. Well, it has: The 2008 presidential election campaign began as the mid-term elections ended in 2006. By February of the next year, look at all the Democrats who had tossed in the proverbial hat — Sen. Joe Biden, Sen. Hillary Clinton, Sen. Chris Dodd, former Sen. John Edwards, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Sen. Barack Obama, Gov. Bill Richardson, Gov. Tom Vilsack and former Sen. Mike Gravel. All but two were sitting governors or members of Congress.

And the Republicans: Sen. John McCain, Sen. Sam Brownback, former Gov. Jim Gilmore, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Gov. Mike Huckabee, Rep. Duncan Hunter, three-time Senate race loser Alan Keyes, Rep. Ron Paul, former Gov. Mitt Romney, Rep. Tom Tancredo, and the Thompson twins, former Sen. Fred and former Gov. Tommy. All but seven were sitting office holders.

This invites comment along the lines of Good god, what have we wrought? regarding Big Money and Running for a New Job While Not Doing the Current Job.
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[P]erhaps the most compelling evidence against the existence of a boys’ crisis is that men continue to outearn women in the workplace.

— from a report by the American Association of University Women, “whose 1992 report on how girls are shortchanged in the classroom caused a national debate over gender equity,” that debunks the notion of a “boys’ crisis,” saying, “Girls’ gains have not come at boys’ expense”; May 20.

I would say the president really has a choice here to show how much he values military service.

— Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., who has led the Senate’s efforts to expand education benefits for veterans, on President Bush’s threat “to veto a bill that would pay tuition and other expenses at a four-year public university for anyone who has served in the military for at least three years since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001″; May 22.
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