The Underreported Story: The debt supercommittee's lobbying ties
Congress is set to return to Washington this week and the controversial, bipartistan supercommittee of 12 members tasked with paring down the deficit by $1.5 trillion will also start its work. The chosen dozen needs to find that amount in spending reductions over a decade or face $1.2 trillion in across the board cuts starting in 2013. But who's influencing the supercommittee?
The K Street Connection
The path between K Street, the home of many of D.C.'s lobbying firms, and Capitol Hill is a well-traveled one. Former lobbyists sign on to work as staffers for new members of Congress, and former staffers make their way to K Street firms to lobby their old colleagues on Capitol Hill. It's networking, Washington-style. The Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks the revolving door of lobbyists and staffers, reported that more than twice as many former lobbyists have been hired this session than in the previous one, giving lobbying firms even more ties to Congress.
Supercommittee Connections
The Washington Post reports that the debt supercommittee is heavily connected to lobbyists. Nearly 100 former staffers of the supercommittee's members now working as lobbyists who will undoubtedly be trying to convince their former employers to go easy on their clients.
So which committee members are the most connected? Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont. (pictured), who has 25 former staffers now working as lobbyists, including a former chief of staff, David Castagnetti, whose firm lobbies for a number of industries, including health care, oil and gas, and the automotive industry, among others. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., comes in a distant second, with 14 former staffers now working as lobbyists, and one current staffer with a previous lobbying career.
At the other end of the scale are Rep. James E. Clyburn, D-S.C., who has only two former staffers now working as lobbyists, and Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., with two staff members who formerly worked in the lobbying industry.
Why It Matters
After a protracted debate over the debt ceiling, the supercommittee has been tasked with making deep cuts to the nation's spending. With so many ties to corporate interests, how will that influence the members' decisions on where to make cuts? Americans should be paying close attention as the supercommittee begins its work, to ensure the interests of the American people aren't shuffled aside by connections to powerful players trying to protect their interests.
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RELATED VIDEO:
See what "Countdown" guest host David Shuster and Bill Press had to say about the supercommittee last month:
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Calodemon
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In today's economy the middle to lower class people are still in the aftermath of political fraud keeping us broke. reality is that there is a wide range of wealth to poverty in the middle class there are those who have been able to make being middle class worth it and then those who have been on the fringe of entering middle class who strive to be good people and provide jobs and security to other's while the big money people really don't care about that cause to them those are the whining losers they devour. when really the business owners who provide for people as they struggle themselves are the people who make up a large portion of the public level jobs in this country, NAFTA and the new world order is weening allot of the lower to middle class public level jobs out of the united states. it's like george bush's NAFTA and new world order hates people who have to work for a living while their salary comes from the very people they crap on. the lower and middle class cannot allow the conspired undermining from the obloquious republican gerencies anymore . WE HAVE BEEN ROBBED OUR WHOLE LIVES CAUSE OF OBLOQUIOUS IDIOTS LIKE THE BUSH'S. IT HAS TO END OR THE UNITED STATES IS GOING TO FALL. ending the new world order and NAFTA would be the first step to real recovery. the rest of the world should not be simple people's burden and our government should not conspire and engineer business from making the world a problem to the United States and it's people such as the bush demonocracies Illuminati and it's false demonocratic paromology and false zetectic's evolving into perduellious zygnomics that are really only a burden to the majority of the people of the united states. there are allot of guilty demonocratic republican's that should get publicly lynched. the people need to go on a mission to instill some good god givin fear into these damn bigot's but that always ends up as a smorgasbord of blackmail and further discourse!. the united states has been played off for too long and it has become the cacotopia of demonocratic cacodoxic conspiracies. that undermine the people when the real problem is the obloquious politicians that are only out for private defense manufacturer's and private defense contractor's to get wealthy.
- 1 year ago
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Calodemon
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alexsmith01
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the picture with the story goes well good info and something to keep watching for.
- 1 year ago
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alexsmith01
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oldngrumpy
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Max Baucus always seems to find his way to these committee positions thru his position on the Senate Committee on Finance. He is well known as a drunk and he represents fewer people than live in one borough of New York. We are being systematically sold down the river. The "supercommittee" is irrelevant, as the cuts are already passed as the fallback to the guaranteed failure of this group of clowns. This has been law for a month now. Has anyone seen a list of the cuts that will automatically take place?
If this committee actually proposes something that congress can't amend and is forced to vote up or down then the entire bill will be challenged in the SCOTUS as unconstitutional. Since the full house and Senate were aware of the fallback cuts and voted on the bill with those attached, the only way this becomes law is for the committee to fail. That explains the clown car load that was assembled.
- 1 year ago
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oldngrumpy
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remnantwraith
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oldngrumpy:
You're absolutely correct, Mr. Oldngrumpy - it is totally unconstitutional. They all swore to uphold the U.S. Constitution - yet all of them, who are not bringing this fact to the floor, are violating it.
I wonder when the average every day American (who comprise the majority) is going to tire of their shenanigans; utter the "I'm madder than hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!" - and throw that lot of traitorous thieves out?
- 1 year ago
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remnantwraith

