sances.info

WASHINGTON — There are no Secret Service agents posted next to the barista and no presidential seal on the ceiling, but the Caribou Coffee across the street from the White House has become a favorite meeting spot to conduct Obama administration business.

“Hiring a well-connected staffer can run a firm something like $300,000 to $600,000 a year, and for a member of Congress, it’s anywhere from $1 million to $3 million,” said Craig Holman of Public Citizen. “The only businesses that can really afford that are those that are very wealthy, but clearly these companies are getting their money’s worth.”

As a way of guarding against that, the new restrictions by House Democrats include the auditing of 5 percent of all nonprofit earmarks. But some lawmakers and lobbyists closely involved in the earmarking process predicted that Congressional appropriating committees could still find ways to provide money for pet projects at home — for instance, by directing the Pentagon to add the project money to its own budget.

Details in the reports nonetheless affirmed the strange dance that occurs between wealthy private interests and public officials in election season: Even as lawmakers claim independent judgment and say they act only for the public good, those who write campaign donation checks do so expecting a return on their investments, and their experience makes that outcome a good bet.

Lauren K. Saunders, a lawyer at the National Consumer Law Center, said advocates feared that in the effort to reach a compromise, the agency’s power would be so watered down as to be ineffectual. “We’re completely outgunned,” she said. “Despite the millions of consumers who are affected, the money and the resources of the banking industry clearly overwhelm us. Even in this crisis, it’s hard for our voice to be heard.”

Asked about the Congressional statements, a lobbyist close to Genentech said: “This happens all the time. There was nothing nefarious about it.”

In a late-summer poll by Survey USA, 77 percent of Americans supported a public health care option. Is anybody in Washington listening?

Who is speaking for the people against these wealthy and entrenched interests? Their fear-mongering and selfish blocking of health care reform will, if successful, lead to continued health-cost inflation, ultimately crippling all aspects of the economy. Robert M. Gordon

J Street maintains that most American Jews share its views on the Middle East. They are reliably liberal on questions of war and peace; three-quarters of Jewish respondents to a 2007 Gallup poll, for example, opposed the war in Iraq. The question is how much of an exception they make for Israel. J Street sought to answer this question by commissioning an extensive poll of Jewish opinion on Middle East issues. The survey, taken in July 2008 and repeated with almost identical findings in March, found that American Jews opposed further Israeli settlements (60 percent to 40 percent), that they overwhelmingly supported the proposition that the U.S. should be actively engaged in the peace process even if that entailed “publicly stating its disagreements with both the Israelis and the Arabs” and that they strongly supported doing so even when the premise was revised to “publicly stating its disagreements with Israel.” Strikingly, the average respondent placed Israel eighth among a list of concerns; only 8 percent placed it first or second.

The campaign even aired an ad singling out Billy Tauzin, the drug industry's chief lobbyist. "The pharmaceutical industry wrote into the prescription drug plan that Medicare could not negotiate with drug companies," Obama said in the ad. "And you know what? The chairman of the committee, who pushed the law through, went to work for the pharmaceutical industry making $2 million a year. Imagine that."

Thus, the Democratic leadership must be watched carefully over the next several weeks. Despite the carpet-bombing of lobbying, Americans themselves are not yet completely brainwashed against a more sane healthcare system. A Time poll shows that 63 percent of Americans still favor healthcare coverage for all Americans, even if the government needs to subsidize it for those who cannot afford it, and 80 percent say people should be covered regardless of pre-existing conditions. The majority of Americans want Pelosi, Congress, and Obama not just to bare their political teeth, but to chomp down hard on the forces that put profit before coverage. To borrow from Pelosi, anything less is immoral.