Corporate Welfare

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co., who received such love from Senators, especially Republican senators, in a recent Senate hearing, owes some of his fortune to taxpayers. According to Bloomberg and research by the International Money Fund, JPMorgan "receives a government subsidy worth about $14 billion a year....[which] helps the bank pay big salaries and bonuses...[and] distorts markets, fueling crises such as the recent subprime-lending disaster and the sovereign-debt debacle that is now threatening to destroy the euro and sink the global economy." Read the entire article at: "Dear Mr. Dimon, Is Your Bank Getting Corporate Welfare?," to get a step-by-step discussion of how corporate welfare affects us all. (h/t Think Progress: Economy)

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, "the financial sector is far and away the largest source of campaign contributions to federal candidates and parties." In the 2011-2012 cycle so far, Mitt Romney has received far more contributions than any other presidential candidate: $19, 222, 965 to Obama's $8, 414, 629. Of the top 20 recipients of the financial industry's largesse, 14 are Republicans and 6 are Democrats. Insurance heads the financial industry PACs in contributions, with 62% of its contributions going to Republicans this year, compared to 38% to Democrats.

The financial industry is hedging its bets, of course, but it looks as if the Republicans are the favored horse in this year's race. Wonder what the industry will expect in return. Not.

Cozy, Cozy, Cozy

Matthew Yglesias links to a Frank Rich column today in The New York Times, in which Rich describes the lobbyists' cozying up to Democrats. Those of us who cheered--especially those of us who care a lot about health care reform--when Barack Obama promised in his inaugural address that under his leadership Washington would "do our business in the light of day" are cheering less these days as it seems as if business is being conducted as usual in Washington. Just a few highlights from the Rich column:

• Heather Podesta, the high-profile lobbyist for "health care players like Eli Lilly, HealthSouth and Cigna"? She is married to "Tony Podesta, the brother of John Podesta, the Clinton White House chief of staff who ran the Obama transition."
  
  
• How do these close connections to the White House work out for the lobbying duo? Tony's "business was up 57 percent from last year in the first six months of 2009. Heather Podesta’s was up 65 percent."
  
  
• During the last administration, the place to meet, greet, and influence was Jack Abramoff's restaurant Signatures. These days, it's Ristorante Tosca, where the likes of Heather Podesta (lobbying against health reform for big healthcare companies) and Steve Elmendorf (former chief of staff for Dick Gephart now lobbying for financial clients such as Citigroup and Goldman Sachs) meet their clients and government officials they hope to influence.
  
  
• "[I]n early August...the UnitedHealth Group and its fellow insurance giants had already quietly rounded up moderate Democrats in the House to block any public health care option that would compete with them for business." Those lobbyists whose clients include UnitedHealth Group? Steven Elmendorf (Elmendorf Strategies), Tom Daschle (ummm, not officially a lobbyist, but a "special policy advisor"...), and "a former chief of staff to Steny Hoyer, the House majority leader."
  
  
• Of course, the Republicans may be out of power, but they're just as easily influenced as those in power. Eric Cantor and John Boehner "are big recipients of UnitedHealth campaign cash." And, of course, there's John Ensign (R-Nevada), who used his connections to provide clients for his mistress's husband--a special category of lobbyist influence all of its own.

But then, we knew that...and those of us who voted for Barack Obama hoped that he would deliver on his promise. As Frank Rich says, "If the Olympic committee has the audacity to stand up to a lobbyist as powerful as the president of the United States, then surely the president of the United States can stand up to the powerful interests angling to defeat his promise of reform."

Quotations from Frank Rich's op-ed column, "The Rabbit Ragu Democrats," The New York Times, 3 October 2009.

See also: Thomas Franks' column in The Wall Street Journal, "Obama and the K Street Set," 30 September 2009.

Tired of the Unbelievable Crap. . .

shoved at us this political season:

Think Progress has a post on the lobbying activities of John McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis. As Ryan Powers of Think Progress notes, in an interview with NBC, John McCain said he would be happy to have his campaign manager's lobbying record examined. However, when The New York Times did just that, McCain's campaign responded very angrily, calling The New York Times "pro-Obama."

Since McCain has tried to tie Obama to lobbyists for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, it would seem to be only fair--to most rational people--to examine that claim and to research, also, how McCain's campaign stacks up in the same light. And guess what? Over a five-year period, Rick Davis, McCain's campaign manager "made nearly $2 million lobbying for the two mortgage giants.". Now this is not information that New York Times reporters have made up out of nothing. They examined public records and interviewed "current and former officials at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac."

When journalists began examining Sarah Palin's record, the McCain campaign responded in a similar way. Any real questions lobbed at McCain's choice for VP were touted as unfair, biased, even sexist. We've entered an age when facts do not matter, when simply trying to establish facts is seen as subversive, anti-American, unfair, mean. Non-partisan fact check organizations also get slammed by Karl Rove. (One of the young women who works with me asked me today, "Why are people still listening to that man?") In other words, why even bother about the facts? Why try to get to the truth? Arrrgh!

But the long campaign to get people to disregard facts is working. In a recent conversation, a relative told me that she thought Fox News was unbiased, very fair. When I asked her if she knew who owned Fox News (as I have asked in the past if she knew who is the CEO of Fox News), she said she "didn't want to know." That attitude is frightening in a democracy. I don't know how one combats it. But the McCain campaign sure knows how to use it.

Update: Republicans report that John McCain has chosen William Timmons, Sr. to head McCain's White House transition team. Timmons was until recently a lobbyist for Freddie Mac. See Steve Benen's comments on the choice.