I'm always impressed at how little it costs, in relation to the benefits, to buy Congress.
BobW
--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
<http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1007/6359.html>
>
> Business abandons GOP for Democrats
> By: Jeanne Cummings
> October 16, 2007 12:20 AM EST
>
> Lag, lag, lag. That’s all you hear these days
> regarding Republican
> fundraising compared with the Democrats’.
>
> Now we can add a new word: abandoned.
>
> The business community that celebrated the
> Republican takeover of
> Congress in 1994 by spending millions to prop it up
> for more than a
> decade is in full retreat.
>
> All 10 of the top-giving industries tracked by the
> Center for
> Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan money and
> politics watchdog group,
> are now donating more cash to Democrats than
> Republicans. A year ago,
> Republicans had the edge in six of the 10 sectors.
>
> Financial powerhouse Goldman Sachs has sent 71
> percent of its cash
> this year to Democrats while JPMorgan delivered 68
> percent of its
> checks to the new majority.
>
> Citigroup Inc. followed close behind, with 63
> percent of its cash
> deposited in the accounts of House Speaker Nancy
> Pelosi and her
> colleagues. Even the big drug companies are trying
> to warm up to
> their adversaries; that sector is giving at a rate
> of 50-50.
>
> Only the old allies of President Bush and Vice
> President Cheney in
> the oil and gas sector are holding firm, giving 72
> percent of their
> donations to Republicans and 28 percent to
> Democrats. Of course,
> those numbers could change after the Democrats
> unveil a global
> warming bill and the industry’s lobbyists seek to
> tweak the final
> language.
>
> An obvious engine behind the shifting fortunes of
> the parties is the
> Democratic takeover of Congress. Businesses that
> ignored minority
> members for years are now trying to build
> relationships with the new
> power players.
>
> These new friendships could quickly turn prickly as
> Democrats zero in
> on new funding sources for their domestic agenda by
> closing tax
> loopholes and raising other taxes that impact the
> business community.
>
> But there’s more at work here. In many ways,
> Republicans have nobody
> but themselves to blame for turning the mutually
> beneficial and
> philosophically aligned relationship between
> corporations and GOP
> caucuses into little more than a transactional one,
> easily discarded
> at first evidence of a market disruption.
>
> Republican leaders threatened a freeze-out of
> business lobbyists who
> dared hire a Democrat or ignored the names on the
> leadership’s
> private hiring tip sheet.
>
> Pay-to-play became the insider mantra during the
> Republican reign.
> But “extortion” was how many CEOs described the
> annual shakedowns by
> committee chairmen with jurisdiction over their
> industries.
>
> No group expressed greater relief — privately and
> publicly — than the
> business community when the 2002 McCain-Feingold law
> banning
> unlimited corporate donations to politicians became
> law.
>
> Even the GOP’s agenda seems to have curled cruelly
> back on their
> erstwhile allies.
>
> Sure, President Bush’s big tax cuts and easing of
> regulatory
> oversight were roundly applauded. But then there was
> the Sarbanes-
> Oxley law, a cumbersome set of new rules imposed on
> corporations
> after a spate of their own scandals.
>
> As businesses begged for help on health care costs,
> Republicans
> staked out policy positions aimed more at defining
> partisan wedges
> than practical solutions.
>
> Corporate chieftains disciplined in monitoring the
> bottom line
> witnessed Republican committee chairmen spending
> like divas on new
> government programs and earmarks.
>
> Scandals and hypocrisy gave a tawdry air to the
> relationships,
> prompting some brand-conscious lobbyists to recoil
> from their
> political brethren.
>
> And, even today, the White House and several
> Republican presidential
> candidates appear willing to try to boost their own
> political
> standing with their law-and-order ranks at the
> expense of their
> corporate allies.
>
> Exhibit A: Leading Republicans argue a key way to
> solve the nation’s
> illegal immigration problem is to make business
> owners face prison
> time unless they can verify their employees are
> legal.
>
> Just last week the U.S. Chamber of Commerce joined
> with the ACLU to
> win a court order preventing the Bush administration
> from
> implementing a program that would subject farmers,
> landscapers,
> hoteliers and builders to fines and prison sentences
> if they can’t or
> won’t affirm the legal status of their employees.
>
> The business community objected to the plan, arguing
> it could lead to
> discrimination and the denial of jobs to native-born
> U.S. workers.
> The court agreed. The Department of Homeland
> Security says it is
> considering an appeal.
>
> Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said
> there is another
> solution — one that the business community agrees
> with — and that
> would be for Congress to pass comprehensive
> immigration reform. But,
> excuse me, who blocked that this summer? Oh, yeah,
> Chertoff’s own
> Republican colleagues on Capitol Hill.
>
> The U.S. Chamber had already begun to hedge its bets
> last year, when
> a broader shift in corporate giving was detected
> late in the election
> season as Democrats gained momentum.
> In January, a wholesale repositioning was in
> swing.The list of top
> recipients of corporate political action committee
> donations in 2003
> was dominated by House Speaker Dennis Hastert and
> endangered
> incumbents, including California Rep. Richard Pombo
> and Ohio Rep.
> Deborah Pryce.
>
> Today, Hastert’s sitting in the House cheap seats,
> Pombo’s at home
> fighting legal troubles and Pryce is bailing out of
> Congress before
> the Democrats can take another shot at her in 2008.
>
> Meanwhile, this year’s third-quarter, top 10
> corporate PAC recipients
> list leads with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer
> (D-Md.), House Ways
> and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel
> (D-N.Y.), House
> Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) and Pelosi.
>
> In the first nine months of 2003, the top 25
> financial
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