So the House GOP is stalling on lobbying reform

[salin]

key sticking point seems to be any restrictions against free meals and free trips.

Er... Live within your Means, folks - the rest of us have to.

Back when I spent time working on and around the Hill these folks made less than $80,000 (mid/late eighties) - now they make more than $160,000 + get a housing allowance (due to needing to generally keep up two homes - often a home in the district and an apt around Metro DC.) Their incomes have increased at a rate much higher than most everyone else's (albeit, a lower rate of increasse than CEOs and other top corporate execs.)

If you can't afford a $3,000 Golfing trip to Scotland, then Don't Go!

If you can't afford a whole lot of $100 dinners - then Don't Eat Them!

Not only do most of the rest of us have to do the same with less (due to inflation that you won't admit is happening), we are stuck with a very punitive Bankruptcy Law that has no exceptions if the bankruptcy occurs due to medical crises or natural disasters (think Katrina victims).

Why the heck do you, GOP in Congress, deserve all sorts of freebies - freebies that seem to have become a whole lot more than "access" (the old question of what political donations get donors) - and a whole lot more like "Pay to Play" ... especially in light of the huge escalation of earmarks (both in sheer numbers of earmarks, and in $ size of earmarks). Time and time again votes seem to favor corporations not even in your districts and against the interests of your constituents. So why the heck can you not "do without" the freebies - the very expensive lobbying gifts?

It is ironic, actually, the sense of Entitlement that your (GOP) Leadership in the House is putting on display for the public. For the party that bashes social safety net programs as harboring a "culture of entitlement" to be so beholden to your own sense of Entitlement in such an overt manner is... well.... interesting. Keep at it, as your sense of Entitlement is swirling into something much more potent than a bank "check kiting" scandal, and your positioning that you are Entitled to goods/services/trips that are far beyond your means (or so your behavior seems to indicate) appears to have the potency to be your undoing (in a "majority status" sort of way.)

[Swamp Rat]

1. Russ Feingold slams the Bushler administration on "Real Time:"

He mentions 527s and lobbying about 3/4 of the way through:

http://movies.crooksandliars.com/Real-Time-Russ-F.mov

[salin]

2. Go Russ!

This will be a problem until we get big money out of campaigns. We *need* publically financed campaigns - and done in a way where it is an embarassment if/when politicians opt out (as in pointing to their vulnerability to being compromised on Constitutional duties per governance "of the people and for the people.")

[Swamp Rat]

3. I recommend watching the whole clip.

Russ is da man!!! :patriot:

I would campaign on my hands and knees for Russ Feingold, if he ran for office.

GEAUX RUSS!!! :patriot:

:kick: Russ Feingold/John Conyers2008!

[cornermouse]

4. Molly's take on it.

http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/1/2006/1319

Pluperfect doozies passed off as reform

[salin]

5. Molly is very on point.

She describes Slush-fund politics of today's House GOP, very well.