Money from Lobbying is Bribery

House ethics committee last year passed a new law concerning the disclosure of lobbying contributions. According to the law a report must be submitted showing how much money each lobbyist gives. But it doesn’t say you can’t receive contributions. Nor does it say you have to give the contributions back, that would be blasphemy.

By receiving these ‘donations’ politicians are being paid for the expectations of favors. George W. Bush went to unprecedented lengths to ‘pay back’ his donors. Anyone who thinks a politician does not look more favorably upon a donor over a non-donor has his head in the sand, hence the attention of the ethics committee. But they only passed legislation to make it appear to the general public, the outsiders, that they were questioning this form of bribery. The actual result of the law only formalizes a list for the benefit of politicians and lobbyists alike.

Any legislation the ‘ethics’ committee passes is highly suspect because of the way it which it is worded. They are experts at wording legislation so they give the appearance of upholding ethics while at the same time don’t block this flow of money. After all, being politicians themselves, members of the House committee like free money just as much as anyone else. The positive aspect of generating these reports, for the politician, is that they can now be used to track how much money each lobbyist gave so that access to the politician can be prioritized. Also, appropriate sized favors can be given in return. After all, you don’t want to repay a thousand dollar donation with the same favor you give a hundred thousand dollar donor. And if you have not yet paid, then don’t even expect your requested favor to be considered.

Who receives this free money? Any politician in a position of voting for or appropriating money to legislation that would benefit the donor. Such as the top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee, now there’s an ideal position to buy favors from.

Senator John McCain received $181,000 while publicly putting down the practice, this what you call two-faced. Barrack Obama says he received $6,000 from lobbyist and claims plans to give it back.

Oil and gas industry executives and employees donated $1.1 million to McCain last month -- three-quarters of which came after his June 16 speech calling for an end to the ban -- compared with $116,000 in March, $283,000 in April and $208,000 in May.

I am willing to bet that oil industry lobbyists convinced McBush to change his position on the drilling ban with the promise of huge donations.

“Donations” from lobby groups have become a staple in the world of politics. Much as sponsors on race cars have become ubiquitous that it is very rare not to see a race car plastered with icons from big box stores to internet companies and even breakfast cereal. If we could picture politicians following this same ‘pride in sponsorship’ we would see tattoos and logos from their lobbyist plastered to their bodies covering them from head to toe.

The question of ethics always arises when money changes hands. This fluff bill is a poor attempt at showing the taxpayers that they will not stand for money for favors. Therefore, don’t expect any changes in this open display of money for favors.

Maybe the taxpayers should get together and form our own lobby. Maybe the elderly can band together as a lobby group to pay for favors to get favorable healthcare benefits. Maybe grade school students can lobby for more teachers, better education, and hot meals served at school. Or how about if single parent taxpayers struggling to make ends meet could lobby for turning the economy around so money starts flowing back to taxpayers instead of all of these special interest groups. This is simply the way American ‘democracy’ works. The people with the money always get taken care of first.