There are no good guys in this story. The bad guys are the Republicans who made a new entitlement for drugs, and Waxman who menaces companies for making Democratic legislation look bad.
The moral: Sticking government hands into the economy -- through new subsidies, taxes, and regulations -- creates bad situations where there are no right answers.
But this nationalization should serve as a cautionary tale for others — such as health insurers and the tourism industry — looking to latch onto Leviathan’s teat.
For a business, getting in bed with Uncle Sam is like marrying Henry VIII — you may reap benefits you never could have gotten on your own, but history suggests the affair won’t end well for you.
Typically averse to direct involvement in the political fray, the Catholic Church in the United States now finds itself fighting in Washington's policy trenches both on Capitol Hill and at City Hall....The church's newfound political assertiveness likely results from changes in both the nature of the issues at hand and the makeup of the American clergy.
The battles in which the church finds itself embroiled today are not simply about the underlying moral issues -- abortion and gay marriage -- but about more aggressive policies that might restrict the ability of the church and of individual Catholics to act according to Catholic teachings.
If a health-care overhaul clears the U.S. Senate this year, the key vote may be a former drug industry lobbyist who has helped raise millions of dollars from drug companies and insurers.
Paul Kirk, chosen by Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick to fill the seat of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy until a special election in January, will be the 60th Democratic senator, and he looks like a reliable vote for President Barack Obama's push to overhaul the health-care sector.
Kirk could deliver the 60th vote on health care--crucial to break a potential Republican filibuster--which would be fitting for a "reform" effort that will enrich the drug industry and could provide a boon for private insurers.
In 2005 Rep. Bill Delahunt, a Democrat who represents Cape Cod, addressed the Washington Summit of the Travel Business Roundtable, and urged it to lobby more. Fed News reported, "The Congressman called on the industry to wage a more aggressive, bipartisan campaign."
It's not every day that a lawmaker issues a clarion call for more lobbying, so the industry obliged with enthusiasm. The Travel Business Roundtable registered as a lobbying organization in 2006, changed its name to the Discover America Partnership, and hired Steven Schwadron, Delahunt's longtime chief of staff, as its K Street lobbyist. Nobody can say Delahunt doesn't take care of his employees.
Delahunt this year sponsored HR 2935, the Travel Promotion Act
Lyndon Johnson famously shook down companies and lobbyists to advertise on the radio station his wife owned, one of the many corrupt LBJ stories people tell with a chuckle these days. It was a great way to give undisclosed and unlimited contributions straight to the Johnson bank account -- far more useful than campaign contributions which are supposed to be spent on campaigning. Rather than selling access for campaign cash, Johnson appears to have been selling access to buy Lady Bird a new pair of shoes.
Should we have the same concern about the $1,000 edition of Ted Kennedy's book? From the New York Times:
At a time when publishers are scrambling to keep customers willing to pay $26 for a hardcover book instead of $9.99 for an electronic version, the publisher of Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s forthcoming memoir is going in the opposite direction - issuing a limited edition it plans to sell for $1,000 a copy.
Twelve, an imprint of Grand Central Publishing, is planning to issue 1,000 copies of a leather-bound, electronically signed edition of “True Compass” and sell the books through the Web site of the Hachette Book Group, the parent company of Grand Central.
Who has the means and the motive to shell out a grand for such a tome?
Read the whole thing here.Here's how it works: Farmers need to kill weeds around their crops. They can till the ground to kill the weeds--a practice that releases carbon dioxide buried in the soil. Alternatively, they can spray the fields with chemicals that kill the weeds--thus leaving the CO2 underground.
The latter practice requires farmers to buy an herbicide such as agricultural Roundup, made by Monsanto, and also to buy Monsanto's genetically modified "Roundup Ready" seeds, which grow into plants that can withstand repeated Roundup spraying.
With the help of Monsanto, Novecta, a consulting and lobbying arm of the Iowa and Illinois Corn Growers Associations, has called on Congress this spring to grant farmers valuable offsets for shifting to "no-till" farming--a shift that will spur sales of Roundup and Roundup Ready seeds. Thanks to the Peterson-Pelosi deal, this scheme could become law.
Only one PAC contributed the maximum $10,000: The National Fire Sprinkler Association, which cut $5,000 checks Jan. 7 and Jan. 9.
A week later, NFSA President John Viniello told his Illinois and Wisconsin chapters that Rangel "will be supportive" of the Fire Sprinkler Incentive Act, according to the NFSA's newsletter.
Two weeks after that, on Feb. 1, the NFSA held a fundraiser for Rangel -- a $700-a-head breakfast in New York City, attended by a dozen executives and owners of fire sprinkler companies. "He's crucial to the bill," NFSA spokesman Jim Dalton explained to me in discussing the fundraiser.
I am extremely concerned by recent media reports that AIG CEO Edward Liddy owns more than $3 million of stock in Goldman Sachs, which topped the list of companies that received billions of dollars in counterparty payments from AIG. Regardless of whether or not Mr. Liddy is acting in the best interest of AIG or of his stock in Goldman, even the appearance of conflict of interest is a reason for alarm.
As Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., and Rep. Henry A. Waxman, D-Calif., push bills this spring to heighten federal regulation of tobacco, expect newspapers to present “both sides” of the story by quoting cigarette giant RJ Reynolds opposite a group like Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids — painting the kind of industry-versus-do-gooder picture that characterizes coverage of most regulatory battles.Read it here.But, as usual, that picture is false. The most important ally of the “Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act” is Philip Morris, the largest cigarette maker in the world. The anti-smoking groups, which have only a fraction of Philip Morris’ lobbying clout and no generous political action committees, are sideshows in this debate.
Read the whole thing here.Blagojevich offered a bailout to the Tribune Company, which owns both the Chicago Cubs and the Chicago Tribune. Allegedly, he made it clear that the company would only get the bailout cash if it would fire deputy editorial page editor John McCormick, a leading Blagojevich critic.
Only in Chicago? Don’t speak too soon. General Electric, the company that spends more than any other lobbying, is getting special access to credit insurance from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which used to be available only to banks. The insurance is $139 billion in GE debt.
GE also owns NBC, MSNBC, and CNBC (which aggressively supported the Wall Street bailout). So, the U.S. government is in the business of bailing out a major media corporation.
Read the whole thing here.Wall Street, always dependent on Washington for protective regulation and “pro-market” policies that drive capital towards housing and securities, has prostrated itself before the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury in recent days, ushering in a brave new era of a nationalized economy.
Who wins? Who always wins? The politicians, the bureaucrats, and the businesses with the best lobbyists.
If his acceleration in fundraising isn’t evidence enough that Rangel has turned his chair into a fundraising tool, the Baucus-Rangel Leadership Fund should be a tip-off. One month into the new Democratic majority, Rangel formed a joint fundraising committee with Democratic Sen. Max Baucus of Montana.Read the whole thing here.
What do the two have in common, aside from the fact that there is a Harlem, Mont.? Baucus is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, the upper chamber’s tax-writing committee. What would be the purpose of a joint fundraising committee controlled by the two lawmakers with the most control over tax law?
Sure enough, the donor list is plush with developers, financiers and wealthy businessmen with interesting tax situations.
