Number of lobbyists in Washington has more than doubled since 2000

[JRob]

" Lobbying firms can't hire people fast enough. Starting salaries have risen to about $300,000 a year for the best-connected aides eager to "move downtown" from Capitol Hill or the Bush administration. Once considered a distasteful post-government vocation, big-bucks lobbying is luring nearly half of all lawmakers who return to the private sector when they leave Congress, according to a forthcoming study by Public Citizen's Congress Watch."


The Road to Riches Is Called K Street
By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
The Washington Post

Wednesday 22 June 2005

Lobbying firms hire more, pay more, charge more to influence government. To the great growth industries of America such as health care and home building add one more: influence peddling.

The number of registered lobbyists in Washington has more than doubled since 2000 to more than 34,750 while the amount that lobbyists charge their new clients has increased by as much as 100 percent. Only a few other businesses have enjoyed greater prosperity in an otherwise fitful economy.

The lobbying boom has been caused by three factors, experts say: rapid growth in government, Republican control of both the White House and Congress, and wide acceptance among corporations that they need to hire professional lobbyists to secure their share of federal benefits.

"There's unlimited business out there for us," said Robert L. Livingston, a Republican former chairman of the House Appropriations Committee and now president of a thriving six-year-old lobbying firm. "Companies need lobbying help."

Lobbying firms can't hire people fast enough. Starting salaries have risen to about $300,000 a year for the best-connected aides eager to "move downtown" from Capitol Hill or the Bush administration. Once considered a distasteful post-government vocation, big-bucks lobbying is luring nearly half of all lawmakers who return to the private sector when they leave Congress, according to a forthcoming study by Public Citizen's Congress Watch.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/21/AR2005062101632.html

[ailsagirl]

1. Thanks for the article-- I guess that's where the jobs are

Some people will sell their soul to the Devil for
money. These lobbyists know the score (i.e., how
corrupt bushco is) yet they're perfectly willing
to help spread the BS.

Perfectly complicit