$2.5 Billion: Year-To-Date Lobbying Sets New Record

The Center for Responsive Politics reports that total federal lobbying expenditures topped $849 million in the third quarter, setting a new record since firms began filing reports quarterly.

The health sector is the year's top lobbying spender, pouring $396 million to lobbying federal lawmakers on health care reform since January -- an increase of six percent compared to the same period last year.

CRP reports that the total year-to-date spending is now a staggering $2.5 billion. Compare that with the $2.43 billion spent during all of 2005.



Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/30/25-billion-year-to-date-l_n_340632.html

This my friends is why democracy is failing. There is no way everyday Americans can compete with 2.5 billion dollars in lobbying of the Government.

And it's really beginning to look more and more like fascism.

Certain industries would have failed years ago. These industries are not the automotive or consumer good industries.

How can anyone really expect serious reform and a democracy. We don't have a country for the people, it's for the corporations and lobbyists!

it's clear the goal was to derail health reform and climate change:

and they've done a magnificent job.

have their antitrust exemption repealed is a steal.

How are you? I never see you anymore :hi:

once we voted them back in charge.

in 2009 Big Pharma was tops and Insurance Industry was second in the lobbying, aka bribery, department.

Follow the money and you get to the policy.

K&R

Revolution.

Visualizing The Health Care Lobbyist Complex

As Featured on NPR's All Things Considered / Dollar Politics 07.22.09

Health care reform is a major piece of this year's legislative program. In total, five committees will have held hearings on the issue and marked up a bill to reform the health care system in the United States. One of those committees stands out as the key arbiter on the many sticking points of the proposed legislation, the Senate Finance Committee.

The Finance Committee contains a high volume of lawmakers with close ties to the health and insurance industries through both campaign contributions and personal relationships. The visualizations below highlight these influences by mapping former staffers of Finance Committee members who have since become lobbyists for health and insurance interests and showing the number of contributions given to the committee members from these industries.

...

http://www.sunlightfoundation.com/projects/2009/healthcare_lobbyist_complex/#republicans

If the insurance companies didn't feel safe doing their dirty work, they wouldn't contribute to anybody. The only solution is to hold them personally accountable for the violence they are committing on the American people. Why can't we physically restrain them?

we are in agreement on this matter.

a legal way to make life miserable for these people who decide who lives and dies in this country.

Instead, he hires some of them! Anyone else fed-up?

Geithner enlists lobbyist as top aide
By JEANNE CUMMINGS | 1/27/09 4:01 PM EST



Newly installed Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner issued new rules Tuesday restricting contacts with lobbyists – and then hired one to be his top aide.

Mark Patterson, a former advocate for Goldman Sachs, will serve as chief of staff to Geithner as the Treasury Department revamps the Wall Street bailout program that sent an infusion of cash to his former employer.

Patterson’s appointment marks the second time in President Barack Obama’s first week in office that the administration has had to explain how it’s complying with its own ethics rules as it hires a bevy of Washington insiders for administration jobs.

...

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0109/18047.html

Think of the Freedom Works created thousands of corporations who each max out their donations! Justice Sotomayor was right. We should revisit the idea of giving corporations first amendment rights in the first place.

democracy.

done with that 2.5 billion dollars ... it takes 31 years, 251 days, 7 hours, 46 minutes, and 39 seconds to count 1 billion bucks - at a dollar a second ... now times that by 2.5 - that's a staggering amount.

K&R

$$$

that it looks like the only way we will ever get health care reform is if we get campaign reform first.

If prostitution is against the law, why isn't lobbying? The lobbyists participate in far more obscene activity than do prostitutes.

Pwned.

How can there be a change here if the ones getting all the money are the ones who have all the power to change it.