Lobbyists and their Centrist Helpers Descend on Stimulus Package

Newsweek shows how lobbyists for industries and their attendent 'centrist' Congress members are hovering over the stimulus package like tropical mosquitoes.

I know there's a deal done supposedly in the Senate on the current stimulus package, but the feeling that the blood sucking elite and business can still get more through the work of the buzzing 'centrists' might be valid.  The Bush administration, especially when they also controlled the Congress had allies changing bills up to the last minute long after some deal was supposedly finalized.

Remember how protection for Thimerol (a mercury containing drug that many believe causes problems for children who receive it in their vaccination) was stuck into the bill that created the Homeland Security Department at the last minute.  A bill to bolster Homeland Security a couple of years later contained the nonsensical addition that banned online gambling (nonsensical if you don't add in the lobbyists for offline gambling in this nation).

So there can still be changes made unless the Democrats completely eschew the Republican practice of sticking things into bills, which was often done in the middle of the night when a bill would be passed at 2 or 3 am.

(No wonder bars close at 4 am in DC.  Our Congressionals need to get the taste of what they've been forced to approve out of their mouth.)

Therefore, it's worth noting that lobbyists for good and lobbyists for bailouts of more and more industries will be working with our Congress folk.  People who would like more money to get our schools back to where they used to be are bumping into pros trying to get a billion here or there for the big spending business which see money to be had to enrich their own pockets.

Much of the surprise insertions come after both House and Senate votes and when representatives of the two chambers get together to create a 'compromise' (as news sources call it) in a conference committee.  That's when the centrists and others descend with their lobbyists' requests, though it's hard to match the stuff that Republican leaders stuck into bills at the last minute as noted above.  After the conference committee the full Congress must just vote a bill up or down without an ability to call for amendments. 

During the Republican majority years the GOP leaders used such a situation, by breaking promises they made to Democratic Senators, to create just the legislation that the Dems had opposed and used their House majority to get  odious legislation passed.

Well, the mosquitoes haven't left DC apparently:

Read Newsweek "THE INFLUENCE GAME: Lobbyists work stimulus to end "

tags: congress  lobbyists  centrists  senate  house of representatives  

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