Approved drug card providers leaned toward Bush campaign

WASHINGTON -- Soon after the Bush administration named Medco to be one of the first Medicare drug card providers, a company executive helped throw a $100,000 fund-raiser for the president that was headlined by Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson.

The role of Medco Specialty Pharmacy Services President Alan Lotvin, a co-chairman of the mid-April event in New Jersey, is just one of the ways prescription drug card providers have reached out to politicians.

In all, companies that won approval from Thompson's department spent at least $35 million lobbying in 2003, and their executives and lobbyists donated or raised hundreds of thousands of dollars more for President Bush's re-election. Democratic rival John Kerry received a much smaller amount.

While representatives for Thompson and Lotvin say the fund-raiser wasn't connected to the drug cards, Wright Andrews, a former president of the American League of Lobbyists, says it provides a textbook example of how big companies sow good will and win access when business is pending before the government.


http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/2561571

did not win a bid (who tried) to become a provider... and what their donating patterns were - seldom is that angle considered. But note, I believe that both Norquist and DeLay, earlier this year, encouraged members of Congress not to even meet with lobbyists if folks in the firm donated to Democrats.

They are under no illusions about what many government social programs ultimately become: subsidies for corporations.

In a really socialist country, much of the government money goes into payroll for government workers, but, here, it seems to go straight to contractors and subcontractors. Or, they are subsidies.

The Pubs just worked it so that they created a fat subsidy for their cronies, and called it a social program. It's a load of crap. All this push for privitization has blurred the line between government and corporation.

The next step the Pubs are pushing for is to outsource welfare to private corporations that operate under the cover of "faith based initiatives." They are just church-shielded for-profit operations.

Subsidies are bad, and Dems should just say so. It's a 'conservative' line, but, one that is actually true. The twist on all this is: Pubs are big-time suckers at the teat of government subsidies:

- The Farm Subsidy - funds middle America farmers, many who vote CC Pub.
- The Defense Subsidy - funds the war machine.
- The Internet No-Sales-Tax Subsidy - depletes local budgets to benefit "Wired" libertarians.
- The Drug Subsidy - funds drug companies.
- The Corporate Non-Tax - welfare for the rich, subsidizes the yacht business.

They rail against porkbarrel spending, but, they are the pork and the barrel. They create welfare for the rich.

They are conducting class war, and we're not fighting back!

once AGAIN!