A Simple Government. To our surprise, the former Arkansas governor quoted a statistic produced by the Republic Report on how members of Congress enrich themselves by becoming lobbyists. In March, we took a look at the salaries of members of Congress who have retired and become lobbyists, and found that on average, they increased their pay by 1,452%.
Huckabee apparently took note:
HUCKABEE: A fascinating figure: when a person leaves Congress, the average member of Congress who leaves Congress becomes a lobbyist, and his income goes up $1,472%, fourteen times what he made in Congress. The problem is, people go …
How much does corruption cost you? When you use a non-network ATM, it’s usually a $3 fee, just for accessing your own money. The cost to the bank charging you that money, however, is just 37 cents. That’s price gouging, and when you add it all up, it’s a total of $7 billion annually that goes from those who use out of network ATMs straight to the banks, card networks, and independent machine operators. This problem is much worse if you are only taking out a small amount of money to get you through the day, like $20 …
The Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities is the primary lobbying group for the for-profit college industry. As we’ve reported before on Republic Report, some APSCU member schools have a record of fraudulent practices: targeting veterans and low-income people for recruitment while maintaing atrocious drop-out and loan default rates. APSCU and its members spend thousands of dollars lobbying politicians from both parties, while its schools are financed primarily by government grants and loans to students. APSCU essentially works on behalf of numerous predatory schools that deceive students on the taxpayer’s dime.
But if you visit its website, APSCU …
Charles and David Koch, the billionaire owners of of Koch Industries, are known as big spenders when it comes to lobbying and influencing public policy. Now, a new document filed with the IRS reveals how the Koch political machine funneled over $54.5 million in previously undisclosed funds to a litany of front groups designed to smear Democrats.
The disclosure suggests that a very wide variety of Republican groups active in the last major election, from pro-life organizations that ran ads on abortion to shadowy fronts that aired partisan commercials with the infamous Ground Zero Mosque conspiracy, have been highly …
On April 21, the New York Times’s David Barstow broke a major story about Walmart’s alleged extensive bribery in Mexico to expand its presence there. Yet, as you can see from the chart above, Walmart’s stock has recovered all of its value since the story, and it has outperformed the Dow by 4%. The threat of legal action against Walmart executives and the company itself is apparently something investors just don’t care about. Warren Buffett, no less, says he hasn’t changed his opinion on the stock. He finds this scandal the result of a few bad apples, and …
Today, the House of Representatives is expected to vote on House Resolution 568. At first glance, the bill seems to be fairly routine, in that it says it is to express “the sense of the House of Representatives regarding the importance of preventing the Government of Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability.”
But dig a little deeper into the bill, and you’ll find language that ratchets up the level of confrontation with Iran, potentially boxing in the Obama Administration and undermining the chances to keep Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon while avoiding war. The bill seeks to demand certain …
As Stephen Colbert rightfully pointed out earlier this week, a 501(c) organizations — which he termed “Spooky PACs” — operate like Super PACs, except that they are completely secret organizations that do no reveal any of their donors. Like Super PACs, 501(c) groups can raise unlimited corporate and union donations, and can spend that cash on independent expenditures, better known to voters as attack ads, automated telephone calls, and political mail.
The biggest Spooky PAC since the Citizens United decision has been the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber trades on its brand. People think the U.S. Chamber, based …
What do Jamie Dimon, chief executive of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., and Michele Bachmann, a conspiracy-obsessed representative from Minnesota, have in common?
Both support H.R. 87, Bachmman’s legislation that would repeal all major Wall Stret reforms passed in the wake of the financial crisis.
Though Bachmann has been cast as a fringe figure over her calls for violence over clean energy legislation, to her idea that the movie the Lion King is part of a gay propaganda campaign, and other extreme views, lobbying disclosures reveal that the big banks are lining up behind her bill:
– The U.S. Chamber …
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