The business of influence in Washington

chicagotribune.com

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/health/chi-0504100388apr10,1,7319226.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

The business of influence in Washington

Drug companies fund group battling AARP

By Michael Tackett
Tribune senior correspondent

April 10, 2005

WASHINGTON -- Say this for him, Charles Jarvis doesn't think small.

Jarvis is chairman of the United Seniors Association, an organization he markets as the small but scrappy conservative alternative to the venerable AARP. Brash and blunt, Jarvis has taken on a high profile in the capital this year--on television, in print and on the Internet--as he savages AARP for its opposition to President Bush's plan for private accounts within Social Security.

But the story of his fight with the nation's best-known seniors group is hardly one of David versus Goliath. The group is also known as USA Next and is funded primarily with millions of dollars from pharmaceutical and energy companies, among others.

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Records obtained by Public Citizen show that PhRMA, the trade association for major U.S. drug companies, has in past years been a large donor, along with drug giant Pfizer Inc.

USA Next's powerful connections, however, extend beyond contributors. In fiscal year 2003, other records show, USA Next mistakenly filed with the IRS a list of its top five contractors. The top contractor for that tax year, earning more than $1.3 million, was a firm whose founder is also a principal in another firm with strong ties to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas).

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Washington.

Cool, you can say it either way and it means pretty much the same thing.

Anyway, no matter how you say it, we have got to kick the corporations out of government completely and permanently.

and Medicare. They loose their monopoly when they face Universal Health Care (even in the senior's market). They also hate the UN for the same reason.

there are about a dozen people who are running just about EVERYTHING