No Change For Washington Lobbyists

by Kathleen McKinley | February 15, 2010 10:30 am

You know those wall street fat cats the Democrats are always howling about? A lot more than Democrats were howling about the $17 million bonus awarded to JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon and the $9 million bonus for Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein after our taxpayer money bailed them out.

Here is what Obama had to say about the two of them recently:

“I know both these guys; they are very savvy businessmen,” he said. “I, like most of the American people, don’t begrudge people success or wealth.”

He could have ended that sentence with, “..as long as they share it with me and the Democratic party.” Indeed, these two fat cats do “spread the wealth around”….to the Democratic party:

Goldman employee contributions to Democrats in 2008 ranked second only to those employed by the University of California. JPMorgan Chase’s employees ranked No. 7. The stereotype of Wall Street being Republican is decades out of date.

Any one who has worked for a large corporation like Goldman know that usually all employees are asked to contribute to a PAC. The company then decides where that PAC money goes. Nothing wrong with that. It’s not that I begrudge them where they donate their money, but maybe the Democrats can end the talking point of Republicans being for the “fat cats of wall street” when the Democrats do more than their fair share of crony capitalism.

Michael Baron points all this out in the Washington Examiner today[1], and ends with the fact that the American people need to know most of all:

“Lobbyists, reports the Center for Responsive Politics, had a record 2009 in Barack Obama’s Washington. Despite candidate Obama’s promises to shun them, they raked in $3,470,000,000.”

Even liberal Frank Rich of the New York Times admits that Democrats now hold the mantle of being beholden to coporate interests:[2]

“Yet it’s the Democrats who are now most linked to corporate interests, thanks to all the backroom deals over health care. More Americans have heard of the Medicaid money shoveled to the Democratic senators Ben Nelson (the January “porker of the month”) and Mary Landrieu in exchange for their health care votes…”
………………

Obama ingeniously identified himself with the most despised aspects of both Washington and Wall Street – the bailout and the bonuses. He still doesn’t understand that to most Americans, Blankfein is a savvy businessman only in the outrageous sense that he managed to grab his bonus some 17 months after the taxpayers had the good grace to save him from going out of business altogether.

Lobbyists and corporations still rule the day in Washington, to record levels. No hope or change there.

Hey Democrats, are you angry yet at who you should be?

Endnotes:
  1. Michael Baron points all this out in the Washington Examiner today: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Under-Obama_-crony-capitalism-again-rules-the-day-84271222.html
  2. admits that Democrats now hold the mantle of being beholden to coporate interests:: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/opinion/14rich.html?ref=opinion

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