The GOP's Pledge to America's Lobbyists

Well, we now know in vivid detail what the Republicans would do if they ever regain power. They would go back to letting the lobbyists write legislation, industries regulate themselves, and give even more money to millionaires and billionaires. In other words, put the Foxes back in charge of the hen house. They aren't even trying to hide this intention. Their Roadmap Survey that was carried out over the last year seems to have been of little help and their top 2 responses were dismissed by the GOP in favor of their tired old failed policies straight from the Bush years. They'd have been better off taking the first 2 responses they got.

 

Here is a recent Time article that I found interesting on how lobbyists write the legislation in the current Congress.

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,2000880-1,00.html

There is a reason bills these days are soooooo long. The article touches on that too.

 

Stu...Keep that up and your going to get called a racist

Heres the text of the pledge so we keep it in context :

http://www.scribd.com/doc/37958976/GOP-Pledge-to-America

40 days from today, we will all be watching the election returns, and America will let us know the real feet on the ground opinion of this pledge.

 

and in 40 days, we switch back to the Bush years....only now, new and improved, and exponentially more lethal to the masses. Big choices that and the tea wackjobs. What a bright future we all have to look forward to.

 

The Moe & Toe Show rears it's ugly head again...are you guys rehearsing this?
Perhaps you two should try actually reading this Pledge before reciting Biden/Clyburn/Frank talking points. Once you've done this, then please come back to us with any porvison of the Pledge that you would take issue with- but only after reading it for yourself.
(I'm guessing that's all we'll hear from the left on this subject)

 

Are you putting your money down that this pledge will be implemented? Are is it just politics(read bull$hit)?

 

Good point Stu. Lobbyists have always had a hand in writing legislation because, to be honest, they know the industries better than the people that are supposed to be regulating them. I may not like it and you may not like it but that is the way it is done.

I believe that the important distinction that you are glossing over here is that this isn't some bill that needs an insider's perspective in order to address some specific industry, this is the entire Republican platform being written by a lobbyist. What specifically qualifies this lobbyist to write on topics from abortion, to health care, to taxes? What kind of lobbyist has that kind of insider knowledge?

The Republicans aren't even pretending to represent you and I anymore. They are not even bothering with pretense. I get that. My question is why would anyone else still pretend that the Republican Party wasn't simply shills for Corporate America? I know the Right wing likes to complain and label the Left as "Elites" but what is more elitist than Corporate America?

 

So our lib friends are against the pledge, lets take a look.

For Pledge: Cut spending, cancel remaining expenditures of the 2009 porkulus bill. "Impose hard budget caps on discretionary spending accounts and reduce spending for congressional operations. Have weekly floor votes on winners of the YouCut program. It allows citizens to vote online for programs that ought to be slashed.
Against Pledge: Spend your money, my money, my neighbors money, my childrens money, my grandchildrens money. Allow citizens to do or know nothing.

For Pledge: End TARP.
Against Pledge: Bailout money for everyone.

For Pledge: End government control of the secondary home mortgage lending giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and freeze federal hiring for non-security jobs.
Against Pledge: Let Chris Dodd and Barney Frwank oversee

It's basic common sense positions and it is what people are clamoring for. People want an end to what is happening now. They want the brakes applied to the Obama agenda.
Democrats are reacting in panic to it, because all they can do is spout all of their worn-out templates, all of their worn-out narratives, "Yeah, this is going to end Social Security. This is nothing more than tax cuts for the rich." The Democrat Party are a bankrupt bunch of people. They have no ideas they can sell.
The people of this country, if they were to honestly hear, if they were to have been honestly presented with Obama's agenda prior to the election, he would not have gotten 30% of the vote. The Democrat Party -- the socialist-Marxist agenda, whatever you want to call it -- if ever put to a vote would get creamed in a landslide.

 

What does he mean by "porvison" ?

 

Now that the Cons have spent 3 trillion on wars of choice, implemented Medicare part D completely unfunded, given 2 enormous tax cuts to the millionaries and billionaires for 10 years and want it to continue it, ran up the deficit like drunken monkeys, and left this country in the worst recession since The Great Depression, they suddenly want to be fiscally conservative. Pardon us "Libs" if your advice falls on deaf ears. Your track record speaks for itself. We'll take it from here.

 

2 out of the 3 examples you pointed out...the most recent legislation on them by those currently in charge (health care bill and financial reform bill)...were written by lobbyists. And as far as lobbyists 'knowing the industries better'. Certainly...but they have the rich folks interests at heart not the people's...regardless of whether it is Dems or Repos that they are writing the bills for.


Here is a quote from the article I posted...

With other groups lobbying on the same issue, the overall spending to protect the favorable carried-interest tax treatment was maybe $15 million.


And what did the money managers get for their $15 million investment? About $10 billion in lower taxes. While lawmakers did manage to boost the taxes of hedge-fund managers and other folks who collect carried interest as part of their work, they agreed to a compromise (tucked into a pending tax bill) that will tax part of those earnings at the regular rate and another part at a lower capital-gains rate. The result? A tax bite about $10 billion smaller than what the reformers wanted. That payoff is all the more remarkable when you realize that this tax break is going to some of the wealthiest Americans and that all the reformers wanted originally was for those folks to pay the same graduated income-tax rate that normal wage earners do.

And there was even a parting gift from Congress: with a little-noticed, lobbyist-inspired tweak in the proposal — making it effective in 2011 instead of the proposed 2010 — Capitol Tax and the others achieved an immediate, additional tax savings for their clients of about $2 billion.

Both parties do it the same. And both parties do it for the rich. It is just a talking point one party uses more than the other because their people are more ready to believe it.

 

I think that we've already established that lobbyists play a role in writing many bills for both parties but again, writing the entire GOP platform?

It's funny that nobody asked what the top 2 suggestions the GOP received from the Roadmap Survey were. I thought that people might be interested in what they GOP dismissed. Maybe they already know?

 

I haven't delved deeply into the 'new platform'...It looks like just another piece of election fluff really.

But, since the lobbyists write the legislation...why would I care if they wrote one party's platform in the open any more than I care that they are writing the other party's platform behind closed doors? Hell, if Time is writing stories on it, it is not exactly a liberal secret. And it all results in the same result. As we have witnessed openly over the last 10 years (yes, including the last 2).

 

That's the whole thing, the lobbyist didn't write it out in the open. In fact, his name doesn't appear anywhere on the document. Apparently, only the pdf copy sent out early to the media had his name mistakenly left on as the author of the pdf document. These people's stupidity scares me just a little.

 

Oh, then the 2 parties are the same then. Both do it behind closed doors.

 

If you don't like the term "new platform" would you accept "legislative agenda"? You know the one that was supposed to be ideas from real Americans but that somehow didn't make it into the final product. You should care that the ideas presented to the GOP didn't make the cut but what the lobbyists wanted did. It sort of tells you something.

 

It tells me that there will be no 'change' this election cycle either.

 

While both sides ( of us, here ) are kinda entrenched, I see a chance for all of us to agree on something. Something needs to change, we " americans " are pretty fed up.

How " we " move forward and institute that change does not need to be a lefty vs righty thing, it needs to be a constitutional thing.

Our founders were brilliant, but had infighting just as we have today......and look what they accomplished. Democratic Republican, Whig, Federalist...et al. There is room for everyone and debate is good.

 

The most corruptive influence in our political process is money. The candidates have to spend so much time raising it and rewarding their donors with our tax dollars that we should push for publicly funded, 8-week campaigns which would take the corrupting influence of money out of the equation. It's simple and "we" would own the system again, not the special interest groups that currently dominate the political arena.

Give them each a set amount of money and see who uses it the most wisely.

 

I would like corperations and unions, both, to be denied the ability to contribute to anything at all political...pardon my spelling these days, i m on a tiny phone or leptop thingy