The current political domination is created in part by a long held understanding of the Revolving Door Policy, which enables individuals to move easily between political office and private industry at great profit. There are some limitations but they aren’t enough to work effectively. When that limitation is exploited by a network of well connected power brokers, the lure of wealth and power wins.
WASHINGTON – Business interests are “capturing” the federal government and exerting undue influence over policy and procurement decisions as a result of the revolving door–the frequent appointment of corporate executives and lobbyists to public posts and the movement of government officials into lucrative jobs in the private sector. So warns a report titled A Matter of Trust issued today by the Revolving Door Working Group. The report is available on the Working Group’s website at www.revolvingdoor.info
The Revolving Door Working Group is a broad-based network of 18 organizations ranging from Public Citizen and Common Cause to Farm Aid and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. The Working Group promotes ethics in public service and an arm’s length relationship between the federal government and the private sector.
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The Revolving Door Working Group report provides a thorough analysis of the three major forms of the revolving door:
THE INDUSTRY-TO-GOVERNMENT REVOLVING DOOR, through which the appointment of corporate executives and business lobbyists to key posts in federal agencies establishes a pro-business bias in policy formulation and regulatory enforcement.
THE GOVERNMENT-TO-INDUSTRY REVOLVING DOOR, through which public officials move to lucrative private-sector positions in which they may use their government experience to unfairly benefit their new employer in matters of federal procurement and regulatory policy.
THE GOVERNMENT-TO-LOBBYIST REVOLVING DOOR, through which former lawmakers and executive-branch officials become well-paid advocates and use their inside connections to advance the interests of corporate clients.
No where is this problem more evident than it is in the current administration’s control of access to officials, legislation and opportunity. This has effectively locked out nearly all pro-Democratic or nonRepublican cooperating entities. Some have called that ‘Pay to Play’ accessability. The following excerpt and linked article is a look back at what is being actively confronted now.
Jack Abramoff and Grover Norquist Billing Clients for Face Time with G.W. Bush
Four months after he took the oath of office in 2001, President George W. Bush was the attraction, and the White House the venue, for a fundraiser organized by the alleged perpetrator of the largest billing fraud in the history of corporate lobbying. In May 2001, Jack Abramoff’s lobbying client book was worth $4.1 million in annual billing for the Greenberg Traurig law firm. He was a friend of Bush advisor Karl Rove. He was a Bush “Pioneer,” delivering at least $100,000 in bundled contributions to the 2000 campaign. He had just concluded his work on the Bush Transition Team as an advisor to the Department of the Interior. He had sent his personal assistant Susan Ralston to the White House to work as Rove’s personal assistant. He was a close friend, advisor, and high-dollar fundraiser for the most powerful man in Congress, Tom DeLay. Abramoff was so closely tied to the Bush Administration that he could, and did, charge two of his clients $25,000 for a White House lunch date and a meeting with the President. From the same two clients he took to the White House in May 2001, Abramoff also obtained $2.5 million in contributions for a non-profit foundation he and his wife operated.
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…full article at above link
A few more links for reading and reference.
Under George W Bush, this new system reached its apotheosis. It is a radically novel social, political and economic formation that deserves study alongside capitalism and socialism. Neither Adam Smith nor Vladimir Lenin captures its essence, though it has far more elements of Leninist democratic-centralism than Smithian free markets. Some have referred to this model as crony capitalism; others compare the waste, extravagance and greed to the Gilded Age. Call it 21st-century Republicanism.
At its heart the system is plagued by corruption, an often unpleasant peripheral expense that greases its wheels. But now multiple scandals engulfing Republicans – from the suspended majority leader in the House of Representatives, Tom DeLay, to super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, to White House political overlord Karl Rove – threaten to upend the system. Because it is organised by politics it can be undone by politics. Politics has been the greatest strength of Republicanism, but it has become its greatest vulnerability.
The party runs the state. Politics drives economics. Important party officials are also economic operators. They thrive off their connections and rise in the party apparatus as a result of their self-enrichment. The past three chairmen of the Republican National Committee have all been Washington lobbyists.
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The sums every industry, from financial services to computers, spends on lobbying are staggering. Broadcast media firms spent $35.88 million in 2004 alone on lobbyists in Washington, according to the Center for Public Integrity. Telephone companies spent $71.97 million; cable and satellite TV corporations, $20.22 million. The drug industry during the same period shelled out $123 million to pay 1,291 lobbyists, 52% of them former government officials.
The results have been direct: the Food and Drug Administration has been reduced to a hollow shell, and Medicare can’t negotiate lower drug costs with pharmaceutical companies. In the 2004 election cycle, the drug industry paid $87 million in campaign contributions for federal officials, 69% of them flowing to Republicans.
This is what we need to correct if we’re to have any chance of regaining accountability.
