Dark clouds are forming over the House GOP agenda…
May be storm clouds, or maybe a cloud of former GOP staffers-turned-lobbyists swarming like locusts and offering bribes, er… campaign cash in return for leaving certain programs alone.
It's already worked for farm subsidies. The GOP treats them like a hot stove.
A number of associations hoping to retain federal funding have recently added GOP lobbyists with connections to the new majority. The hiring binge indicates Republican lobbyists are earning dividends from their party’s re-taking of the House in November and points to the headaches in store for a Republican House that wants to take a hatchet to public spending. (The Hill)Slashing NPR's tires will be child's play. Cutting benefits for children will separate the men from the boys...
The National Association of Children’s Hospitals (NACH) has hired former Rep. Deborah Pryce (R-Ohio) of Clark Lytle & Geduldig to lobby for the reauthorization of the Children’s Hospitals Graduate Medical Education program, which uses $317.5 million in federal funding a year.It's time for everyone to take a deep breath and realize that there are other funding sources besides the federal government.
“As a parent of a child who battled cancer, [Pryce] is intimately familiar with the importance of timely access to specialty care,” said Jim Kaufman, NACH’s vice president for public policy. (The Hill)
Americans give over $300 billion to charity every year. We donate 8 billion volunteer hours worth another $169 billion. Swing some of that money and manpower from more frivolous enterprises like lesbian dance troups, battered husbands and Hotels for Hounds, and if we all dig a little deeper for the rest, we can fill the vacuum. And it's all voluntary, from the heart, which is the true mark of genuine charity
GOP lobbying has already worked in one area
James Pethokoukis asks, "Did Wall Street nix GOP push to let states go bankrupt?"
In 2010 election cycle, Wall Street campaign contributions shifted to Republicans from Democrats.If I were a betting man I'd put my money on Hell Yes They Did!
Goldman Sachs and the other big Wall Street banksters who own the US government make money off the bond market, and state bankruptcies would send that market tanking.
Strap it on, my friends. We're in for a bumpy ride. It's even money that the GOP will collapse like a soggy cardboard box. The alternative will not be pretty either.
If the GOP gets anything close to the cuts they want we will be subjected to a 24/7 litany of sob stories, old people freezing in their homes, poor children starving, hospitals closing, governments cutting back essential services. The liberals will play the media like Satan's Bagpipes, and the crescendo of caterwauling and ululations from the left will become almost too much to bear.
We are living in interesting times.
Funny thing in Illinois...no mater how many entitlement programs we shut down, no matter how many agencies lose employess, there still seems to be a dearth of funds.
ReplyDeleteI live for the day that Illinois politicians go to prison en masse.
Hey! It's a goal!
Lobbyists, for the most part, do great damage to American citizens.
ReplyDeleteYet another group pandering for pork.
Hey guys! Check this out! Tell me what you think?
ReplyDeleterestorefederalism.org
~Andie
DT. Agreed, the 17th is what converted us from a true republic to a populist democracy. True to form, we do what all populist democracies do... we vote ourselves bread and circuses, cost and consequences be damned.
ReplyDeleteThe Senate was intended to represent the states, not the people, whose representatives comprise the House. So ask yourself, why do we need two legislative bodies that directly represent the people?
Pennsylvania is a good example of what is wrong with the process. The legislature of PA is elected from across the state, and the legislative seats are pretty much evenly distributed across the state. The senators selected by this legislature would theoretically be answerable to the people of PA as a whole. Today, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia alone decide who is Senator, if you are from Williamsport, Carbondale, or anywhere else outside of the metropolitan areas you may as well not even bother voting.
Under the original system the representative from Philadelphia had no more say in the legislature than the representative from Punxsutawney. We have undone the balance set up in our Republic between Urban and Rural, and Industrial and Agricultural.
Today, like in ancient Greece you either live in a city state, or serve one.
The defense industry is the worst of these lobbyists.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if they're the worst, Trestin. At least defense is in the constitution, but we have gone way beyond the original mandate.
ReplyDeleteThe larger problem is the body politic is incapable of doing its own thinking, so in roll the "experts" to tell them what they need.