University of Illinois lobbyists object to eliminating waste and bloat

I got an email from The University of Illinois System (Chicago, Urbana, Springfield) warning me that "Cuts to federal research funding threaten the future of innovation at the University of Illinois System. " That's a bit of a stretch. The message came from the "lobbying for more money system." I had to wade through a lot of gobbledygook to find out where it came from and what was being threatened. I have no problem if colleges and universities want to lobby their own legislature for special perks, but they shouldn't be asking through our federal tax system for people living in New York and Nebraska to pay for Illinois lobbyists.

Check your investments for DIE

I've suggested that if you have a pension or private investments, you take a look at the Annual Reports to see what the DIE (diversity inclusion equity) statements are. Comcast makes this extremely difficult to find. The annual report was a filing statement, so I went back to the proxy and found it in the 2021 summary. Comcast has way overcompensated for diversity, with 44% people of color among employees. (Can't tell if those are management or line.) 30% are women on the board, 30% POC. I don't mind if they load up with women as long as they are qualified and didn't get degrees in dance and library science. By 2021 women should be able to tell if they are token or a relative. And does it really make a difference if super rich people who control huge swaths of stock are female or black? Is that really diversity? I abstained on almost all votes, except I voted against the "independent" Me Too investigation, just because in today's climate, no man or woman, gay or straight, in management can get a fair investigation, especially if the investigators comb through their social media posts of 8 years ago or find out about consensual affairs.

 
Comcast's language is a bit more trendy, using BIPOC instead of just POC. That's even more virtue signaling. Like I'm sure the board is loaded with "indigenous people." Donating $100 million for social justice, including "Lift Zones" and BIPOC small businesses affected by COVID. Comcast is another company that's made out like gang busters with the Covid pandemic. $100 million is probably small potatoes. And that revolving door with government? In 2020 124 out of 144 Comcast Corp lobbyists in 2020 have previously held government jobs. Way up from 2019. Yes, it was a very good year for Telecommunication companies.

Elizabeth Warren and lobbyists

15 November 2016

Editor, Wall Street Journal
1211 6th Ave.
New York, NY 10036

Dear Editor:

Sen. Elizabeth Warren is upset that President-elect Trump’s transition team includes many corporate lobbyists ("Elizabeth Warren Criticizes Donald Trump Over Lobbyists in Transition Team,” Nov. 15). Well now. Sen. Warren is second-to-none at empowering Uncle Sam to exercise broad discretionary powers over corporate affairs - powers that, if exercised one way, yield that company hundreds of millions of dollars in additional profits or, if exercised another way, saddle that company with hundreds of millions of dollars of additional costs. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that corporations work hard to have their voices heard among the din of everyone clamoring for the new emperor’s attention.

For Sen. Warren to be upset that Trump’s transition team attracts hordes of corporate lobbyists seeking political favors is akin to a Madam being upset that her bawdyhouse attracts hordes of men seeking female favors.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics and Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center George Mason University

EpiPen, Hillary and the Media

The latest EpiPen story is one more way to not tell Hillary's story as far as I'm concerned. There are hundreds of companies who buy influence in government regulations to protect their products. That female CEO whose salary they were so outraged about is a Clinton Foundation donor. Why would a drug company seek favors? Planning ahead for when she is given the White House after losing it in 2008.  EpiPen, a very cheap product, is protected by our own federal government. 

Let's not lose focus here. Mylan is not the problem. Lots of prices go up 400% in 9 years, even at the local level, like licenses to braid hair, or walk dogs, or to prepare salads in a cafeteria, so it happens right in your own community to protect various trades.   Why is the College Board allowed to decide who goes to college with the ACT and SAT? What are their qualifications? They don't have any. It's a money train for the owners. The "architect" David Coleman who gave us "common core" to dumb down our students, is now President of College Board. What sort of increases do the publishers get?  We were forced into electronic medical records even before Obamacare--it was part of the "recovery" money of ARRA.  Bill Gates has lobbyists too.  My husband had an appointment in early July with a specialist a few miles away from his internist, yet she didn't have the scans 4 weeks later.  We could have walked the records to her office faster.  It's a huge government give away to IT companies. The EpiPen "scandal" is nothing in comparison to the billions we paid for EMR.

Obamacare has also driven up costs and prices, so the TV reporters could do a bit more digging about price increases and not go for the low hanging fruit and look for Hollywood celebs to boost their ratings while hiding from Hillary's scandals. Twitterverse is not news; it's bullying.

http://wqad.com/2016/08/25/epipen-manufacturer-blames-400-percent-product-price-hike-on-health-care-system/

http://truthinamericaneducation.com/common-core-state-standards/david-coleman-again-demonstrates-he-doesnt-get-education/

https://stopcommoncorewa.wordpress.com/2016/03/25/alternatives-to-satact-to-be-available/

A year after the promised transparency

White House dot gov yesterday, when everyone was focused on the crotch bomber or leaving the office for a 4 day week-end, another 25,000 new WH visitor list were posted for Sept 16-30. It was announced on Sept. 4, and this list appeared on December 30. It's pretty tedious to look through (like the e-mails of climategate), and by the time you're finished reading all the times the words "historic commitment," "unprecedented transparency," "milestones in transparency," and "transparency initiatives" the phrases begin to sound a bit hollow, PR-ish, and oh so campaign trail. Well, they promised December, they didn't say when, or how much. Who knew everyone who walked through as a tourist would be included with SEIU reps, CEOs of banks and equity firms and hundreds of lobbyists (apparently they are OK as long as they are "transparent"). Looks like more of the same MO--overwhelm us with information and then strike when the public is flat out gob smacked. While we look at all the energy CEOs' visits, they'll sneak cap and trade or amnesty for illegals in.

Robert Wenzel says these folks were there:

Further research shows that Goldman Sach's CEO Lloyd Blankfein pretty much spent the entire day at the White House on October 29. He met with the president twice that day (one meeting had 119 attendees the other 16). On that day he also met one-on-one with Larry Summers. He also met one-on-one with Summers on February 4.

On October 29, Jamie Dimon met with the president twice, it appears in the same meetings as Blankfein. He also met on that day with Larry Summers but with another person present. He also met one-on-one with Rahm Emanuel that day, something Blankfein did not get to do.

Steven Rattner, who for a time ran the government's auto task force and is co-founder of the investment firm, Quadrangle Group, met with Larry Summers over 25 times.

Microsoft's Steve Ballmer met with Summers once. George Soros met with Summers in February.

While SEIU President Andy Stern doesn't show up on the visitors list this time, after topping it last time, his top assistant Anna Burger met with the President 10 times.

Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers, met with the President 4 times.

In addition to his many meetings with Larry Summers, Steve Rattner met with the President twice.

David Rubenstein co-founder of the private equity firm, Carlyle Group, was in the 119 attendee meeting with Lloyd Blankfein and Jamie Dimon, when they met with the president.

Daniel Weiss, Senior Fellow and the Director of Climate Strategy, for the George Soros front group, Center for American Progress, visited with the President (in large groups) 4 times.

Can we trust government cost estimates?

No. They are never accurate. War. Peace. Highways. Social Security. CO2. Schools. Even pork (earmarks) aren't accurate. Never. Does the government ever "contain" costs. No. In today's Review and Outlook in the WSJ:

Start with Medicaid, the joint state-federal program for the poor. The House Ways and Means Committee estimated that its first-year costs would be $238 million. Instead it hit more than $1 billion, and costs have kept climbing.

Thanks in part to expansions promoted by California's Henry Waxman, a principal author of the current House bill, Medicaid now costs 37 times more than it did when it was launched—after adjusting for inflation. Its current cost is $251 billion, up 24.7% or $50 billion in fiscal 2009 alone, and that's before the health-care bill covers millions of new beneficiaries.

When our legislators get to Washington, or Columbus, or Springfield, or Albany, or Sacramento, they forget it's real money taxed from real working people. To them it's funny money; Monopoly money. All they can do is pass legislation that will 1) fulfill the dreams of their party's philosophy, and 2) win voters back home, who understandably want some of their money back in exchange for sending that person to Congress. When the Congress person's term is up, they slip into "think-tanks" or become lobbyists, and continue on the government dole. Besides, you can't predict what's going to happen in the medical field. They estimated 11,000 renal patients for Medicare and got almost 400,000. The only thing that has come in below projections is the Bush-Kennedy drug plan. We know competition brings down prices, but Democrats don't want that. We know tax cuts induce investments which provide jobs, but Democrats don't want that. They want control and power.

Obama labor appointee needs a hearing

Time to e-mail your senator. Here’s an appointment that needs some old fashioned, Obama-promised transparency. Craig Becker, Associate General Counsel to both the Service Employees International Union, the joined at the hip ACORN twin, and the American Federation of Labor & Congress of Industrial Organizations. Obama has appointed him to the 5 member National Labor Relations Board. According to an op ed in today’s WSJ, in a 1993 Minnesota Law Review article, written when he was a UCLA professor, Mr. Becker argued for rewriting current union-election rules in favor of labor. And he suggested the NLRB could do this by regulatory fiat, without a vote of Congress. So it’s clear what he plans to do, and why Obama wants him on that board. More power for the executive branch, less for our elected Congress.

Acorn's Ally at the NLRB; Obama appoints an SEIU man with ties to Blago.

Mr. Labor Lobby Becker is very evasive about his role on Obama’s transition team and just which parts of executive orders he researched and authored while still in the employ of SEIU. He also has ties to Blagojevich. His open mindedness on labor issues will be about as wide and deep as Obama’s transparency--zilch, nada, zip.

No lobbyist left behind

"The Waxman-Markey climate change bill, a 1,427-page special-interest wish list, was put together in such a rush that the allowance permit numbers don’t add up. If you add the percentage of emissions allowances to various special interests in the years 2016 and 2017 and you get a value greater than one hundred percent. That’s right—the bill allocates nearly a billion dollars worth of allowances over and above the emissions “cap” set for those respective years.

Thousands of lobbyists worked on this bill to secure a piece of the allowance pie. These special interests range from the natural gas industry to the auto industry. Even tropical rainforests made the list. Electric utilities were the big winners, receiving 43.75 percent of the allowances in 2012 and 2013. Petroleum refiners didn’t fare as well, receiving only 2.25 percent of the emissions allowances from 2014-2026. Lobbyists brought their A-game to shape this bill and Members caved into their demands, all but guaranteeing this bill will do nothing for the environment. And it comes at the expense of the ratepayer and the taxpayer.

With over 12,500 registered lobbyists in Washington, it’s no surprise that this bill turned into a feeding frenzy that was rushed through in the middle of the night and promises more than it can actually hand out. Waxman-Markey is nothing more than a huge energy tax and a handout for special interests." The Foundry

Pillows and Politics--the price we pay

This morning I was changing the sheets on the bed at the cottage, and realized the pillows I purchased in early June were coming apart and shrinking. They look like they are half the size they were just 6 weeks ago. Admittedly, they were cheapies. Maybe $3-$4 dollars at K-Mart. But when I bought them, they felt and looked just like the $6 (whoopee) kind. They seem to be made of layers that come apart. So I switched them with the older pillows (maybe 20 years old) from the guest room, which I think are what we used before. I used to always use a down pillow, but after my rotator cuff problems in the 90s (I'm not an athlete, but librarians lift a lot of heavy material) I found foam more comfortable.

The opposite is true in politics. There too, you get what They pay for, but it is the heavy donors and lobbyists contributing massive amounts that override your common sense when you go into the polling place. The big corporations--energy, health, pharmaceuticals, manufacturing--knew who to spend on this last go around. How do you think they became the players? They do that not out of political or economic philosophy--socialism, marxism, capitalism, etc.--but because then they can influence regulation. In order to be at the top of the heap for cap and trade, or universal health care, or wind or coal, they need to be in a position to 1) influence the administration which appears to be in charge, and 2) destroy all the smaller firms, corporations, businesses, and non-profits which might be interested in the health and wellfare of the American people. And then of course, there is the foreign vote money. We all know it's out there, we just don't know who, what, when, or where, and since we no longer have responsible, investigative journalism, we'll probably never know.

Lobbyists doing very well under Obama

Here's a job growth sector Obama has really helped. Lobbying. Lobbyists began pouring money into his campaign and Democratic coffers when it became apparent Obama was the front runner, and it hasn't stopped. People who still believe the Republicans are the party of big business haven't noticed how the huge companies and sectors support increased government regulation and interference in business. Why? Well, it knocks down (but not out) the competition, and totally demolishes the little guy who might have gotten big. Only the biggest can afford to wade through that snarl of paperwork, hire the lawyers, and grease the palms of the local, state and federal officials in the pork game.

Although Obama vowed to reduce the influence of lobbyists, so far, he has succeeded in slowing the economy to a crawl and raising lobbying by 80% (from 2008) from a $1.8 billion in 2002 to $3.3 billion. (WSJ, June 15, State of Capitalism article) The $787 billion "fiscal stimulus" that we just absolutely, positively had to have or go under has turned out to be just one more slush fund for Congress, and the nose of the camel in the marxism tent.

NYT article

Tom Daschle, health care lobbyist

Total spending

Lobbying activity increases under Obama

Wow. Now that's change you can count. And mighty fast, too. It's only been 2 months!

"Early numbers suggest that the first quarter of 2009 has seen lobbying in the nation’s capital spike by nearly 22 percent over last year, which would be the largest ever increase in lobbying activity — and a strong indication that President Barack Obama has helped usher in a Golden Era for K Street." DC Examiner

If Congress would stop acting pious

maybe I could get my trip log finished. Today WSJ confirmed the "outrageous" bonuses that members of Congress have received from AIG in the form of campaign support, with Chris Dodd being the all time leader. Also, the "bonuses" that executives at the failed Fannie and Fred have received while helping prop up people who should have never bought homes. If ever a government official should fall on his sword behind Geithner, it ought to be this phony, pious, pompous player. He's chair of the Senate banking committee and was taking money from the people he regulates. That's a wide rest room stance, don't you think? A bit more serious than overtures from a gay guy in the next stall for which "outraged" Dems tried to push out a Republican. Dodd was receiving payments from the very executives of the financial products division of AIG (the one that lost so much) he was castigating.

If Republicans are supposed to be the evil, rich guys, the greedy capitalists, why do large companies contribute so heavily to the Democrats? AIG used to distribute campaign money evenly to both parties--but since 2004 according to WSJ, like many corporations, have been swinging over to the Democrats. Capitalism doesn't need a party or a government system to survive except for the small guy--the big capitalists do well in China, in Russia and in Sweden. Al Gore is making money on this global warming scam in all countries. The idea is to make money. George Soros for all his communist drivel, is an ardent capitalist. The guys at the top of ACORN probably have fat investments and they've invested heavily in Democrats too--especially the President who is indebted to them for their success in getting out the bussed-over-state-lines vote. Power and wealth know no party loyalty.

What capitalists need in the USA are legal ways to destroy the competition, and what better way than through regulation and tricky tax codes? (cap and trade, pollution, safety, set-backs, green spaces, etc.) That's where the Democrats excel and they do it by hyping the taxpayer with phony outrage and classism, pitting lower against upper class, rich again poor. "Working people" against--who; certainly not against those who don't work--that would be the welfare class--but against the successful who paid through the nose for their educations and work 80 hours a week to get to their $250,000 a year jobs.

How hard can it be to get federal money?

Amateurs can do it. Ohio's former Attorney General Marc Dann was a crook and a philanderer. He was fired. Finally. But while in office he created a Washington job for Craig Mehall, a job unique among states' attorney generals, for $98,000. According to the Columbus Dispatch

1. No other AG had a Washington liaison
   
2. Mehall had no Washington experience
   
3. Mehall had never been a lobbyist
   
4. He was a lawyer, not licensed in Ohio
   
5. He had been a volunteer for Dann
   
6. He was from Chicago
   
7. He missed deadlines due to his lack of experience
   
8. He leaked information
   
9. He borrow a private plane from one of Dann's other political buddies
   
10. He continued to work for Ohio after Dann was fired

Mehall was just let go--due to budget shortfalls in the state, although his boss is long gone. Still, the governor's office says "he did a lot of good" by getting millions in law enforcement grants and representing Ohio in consumer rights and debt-relief. He would have been successful in getting a regional crime lab on behalf of a consortium of institutions, but someone backed away from it. Not too bad for someone with no experience, hired by a crook, who wasn't even from Ohio. Why do lobbyists need to do this? What are our elected representatives doing if not bringing home the pork?