Lobbying is up 70% -- Are You? How to Put You Back in Charge.

How the lobbying industry controls the actions of Congress and what we need to do to reduce its corrosive effects on government.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Jobs
• bailout
• budget
• earmark
• economy
• Congress
• spending
• lobbying
• pacs
• term
• limits
• Constitution
• taxes
• deficit
• Washington
• government
• finance
• pork
• lobbyist
• laws
• citizen
• campaign
• term limits
• earmarks

[DanDyer4]

See the Group "Remove special interest money from campaigns" at

my website, actionsforfreedom.ning.com

[DanDyer4]

Join the Term Limits for Congress Group and add your comments at

actionsforfreedom.ning.com/gro­up/termlimits?

[DanDyer4]

H.R 2038, submitted April 22, 2009, would prohibit an authorized committee of a candidate who is a Member of Congress from accepting contributions from any entity for which the candidate sought a Congressional earmark.

The bill doesn't address donations and requests from political action committees (PACs). That loophole must be closed.

[DanDyer4]

H.R. 2038, the CLEAR Act (Clean Law for Earmark Accountability Reform), would ban Congressional campaigns from accepting contributions from any senior executive or registered lobbyist representing an entity for which a Member of Congress has requested earmarked federal funding in that election cycle.

A stronger approach than the CLEAR Act would be to require TRANSPARENCY so that all donations would be easy to find and follow.

[DanDyer4]

Congressmen who will (A) Not sponsor earmarks and (B) Not vote for earmarks:

AZ U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)

VA U.S. Rep. Frank R. Wolfe (R-VA-10th District)

[DanDyer4]

VA U.S. Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA)

CA U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA)

WI U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)

[RooferHoofer]

Unless you know that politicans spend most of their waking hours raising money -- you just don't know what the hello you are talking about.

Including scum like Eric Cantor and Pelosi -- all parties -- liberal or conservative -- these guys are bending over backwards to raise money, most of their waking hours.

Fritz Hollings gave a speech about this when he retired. He said that things have become nearly insane - almost all phone calls, all meeting, all trips, are about raising money.

[RooferHoofer]

Yes - we need open government -- absolutely. No secret meetings/

Lobbyist are fine -- let them lobby -- but in the open. In open meetings - -or in writing.

Dan is right on this. Goofy about Fairtax, but right this.

[TheBInderyAtTheWell]

Great video. Something that really struck home for the first time was the point that by spending so much time on earmarks, Congress spends much less time on issues fundamental to the public interest. I suspect that what will really make a difference isn't so much attempts to proscribe lobbying/contributions, but massive citizen push-back as reflected in emails, letters, visits, large amounts of small contributions (as in Obama interent fund raising)

[DanDyer4]

Another desirable action would be to pass H.R. 1294:

Congressional Accountability and Line-Item Veto Act of 2009.