Lobbyists Run the Republican Party

Matthew Yglesias point out the problems of the Republican philosophy of government-by-lobbyist, the practice of selling public policy to the highest bidder leads to awful policy and the inability to fix lobbyist written policy for the public good.

The Medicare Bill is so bad because lobbyists run the Republican Party. We can't make student loans more affordable because lobbyists run the Republican Party. We can't stop transferring huge sums of money to Saudi Arabia, Iran, Hugo Chavez, and Vladimir Putin because lobbyists run the Republican Party. We can't reorient military spending toward transnational threats because lobbyists run the Republican Party. We can't have Internet access as fast as Koreans and Japanese have because lobbyists run the Republican Party. You can't get the ABC Family Channel without paying for ESPN Classic (or vice versa) because lobbyists run the Republican Party. We can't adopt a simple method for slowing the growth of Medicare spending without cutting benefits because lobbyists run the Republican Party. We can't make the tax code fairer and simpler because lobbyists run the Republican Party.

As Josh Marshall point out if you want a clean up the neighborhood, you need get actual criminals off the streets. If you want better public policy for people, you need to get Republicans out of congress.

Lobbying reform" bills is a good step in cleaning up congress, but it is beside the point. The real scandal is betrayal-of-public-trust.

This is not a lobbying scandal. It's a betrayal-of-public-trust scandal. Lobbyists have no power, no influence, until a public servant gives them power. That's what DeLay and the K Street Project was all about. What they did was to set up a system by which lobbyists who proved their loyalty in various ways, such as taking DeLay and Ney on golf trips to Scotland, could be transformed from supplicants to full partners in government.

Mark Schmitt is correct, every time we say "lobbying reform," we reinforce the idea that it is only the lobbyist who is the wrongdoer. Without public officials Democrat or Republican selling public policy to the highest bidder, no matter how much lobbying reforms bill pass this will not change standard operating procedure in the Republican Congress.

With Senator Rick Santorum and Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert leading the charge of lobbying reform for the Republican party the betrayal of public trust and lobbyists running the Republican party will continue without missing a beat.