Paying companies to lobby the government
An article from last month's New York Times ("Even Cut 50 Percent, Earmarks Clog Military Bill", 11/4/07) documents how even with some reductions by the Democratic-led Congress, corporate welfare in the form of earmarks still falls like manna on the defense industry.
Things are now a little better in the House than they were, since "members submitted written requests for each project and statements attesting that they had no personal financial interests in them," whereas formerly (and still in the Senate). Earmarks were anonymous. Things are still pretty bad, however.
The article contains a table that we find very interesting. It shows the relationship between money spent on Federal lobbying and the amount received in earmark grants for several dozen companies. You can see the whole table here
But here are a few specific examples from the top ten receivers of earmarks in the first six months of 2007. These numbers were assembles by a group called Taxpayers for Common Sense.
Earmarks and lobbying: first half of 2007
| Company |
Millionsi in eramarks |
Millions spent on lobbying |
| L3 Communivations |
$69.5 |
$0.14 |
| DPS Technology |
$31.5 |
$1.3 |
| Raytheon |
$30 |
$0.99 |
| General Dynamics |
$26.5 |
$0.58 |
| Science Applications |
$26.5 |
$0.44 |
| Northrop Grumman |
$22 |
$0.17 |
| BAE Systems |
$21 |
$0.23 |
| Honeywell |
$18.5 |
$0.08 |
| Concurrent Technologies |
$18 |
$0.16 |
| Getstalt |
$18 |
$0.12 |
Of course, all these companies get other federal contracts, and perform other services for elected officials (such as keeping open factories in their home districts). The lobbying fees are therefore somewhat underreported. But the point is the enormous return that companies get on their efforts, in many cases 100 to 1,
Given such numbers, it's clear that the investment in lobbying is a no-brainer. In fact, we are not only offering corporate welfare with no-bid contracts and minimal compliance, but we are subsidizing the lobbying effort a hundredfold. In other words, we are not only paying off the beggars, but also paying the beggars to beg.
10:17:07 PM 
|
|
