The new york times, the best laws money can buy july 12, 2010 - Essay Example

Lobbyists have been around for decades. There is really not much that the common people know about them, except that they lobby. But what does that really mean and why do they have to flock over in the halls of the very foundations of the nation’s sovereignty, the Senate and the House of Representatives. The most common question deduced is what do they actually do and how do they affect us. It seems at first glance that there are really so little of what they do that directly affects the people or the government.

They guise in the fact that their main job is to point out to legislators one or two small details in pending legislations for them to take a second look and reconsider the proposal. The congressman or senator then acts as a mercenary for these interests. Now the succeeding question is what is so important with these minute details that people, groups or corporations have to hire lobbyists to do their bidding. A 1986 article written in Time magazine appropriately titled “Peddling Influence” was an in-depth depiction of the growth of lobbying as a profession.

From being a very reticent profession, as specifically pointed out even congressmen back then do not want to be seen talking with a lobbyist, it has blossomed into a very public and media frenzied occupation. As pointed out, “One man’s loophole is another man’s socially useful allowance, and one man’s lobbyist is another man’s righteous advocate. Nonetheless, the voices most likely to be heard are often the ones that can afford the best-connected access brokers” (par. 4). Steven Brill has painted a clearer picture in how lobbying has affected our nation.

As an explicit example he has cited Private Equity Council, a trade group that wants to augment taxes on carried interest. It keeps on its payroll Capitol Tax with a $30, 000 retainer each month ensuring the taxes on its members are kept low. This type of payment is not limited to only Capitol Tax as there are other firms they employ. It has been reported that they have spent $4.2 million from 2009. Keeping in mind that there are other groups lobbying for the same cause, all in all, according to Brill, this amounts to about $15 million.

This already seems like a lot of money but this is small change as it equates to an investment for about $100 billion in taxes in the next 10 years. This will actually save them around $10 billion in taxes. Furthermore, their lobbyists have afforded them the added bonus that it becomes effective this year instead of 2010. Saving them another $2 billion (Brill, par.4-5). In comparison, the $15 million does not sound that much. It is but a mere insignificant percentage compared to what they will be able to save.

But what does this really mean to us because so what if they are able to save as much. It is uncomforting to think that this “payoff is all the more remarkable when you realize that this tax break is going to some of the wealthiest Americans and that all the reformers wanted originally was for those folks to pay the same graduated income-tax rate that normal wage earners do” (Brill, par.6). It is but the virtue of equity that this tax policy should have been implemented. As the saying so aptly puts it, ‘absolute power corrupts, absolutely.

’ There seems to be no satiation to the hunger that what the rich wants is to be richer while others are