INTERNAL LOBBYIST: A NEW CONCEPT

Farm subsidies are a way of funneling taxpayer money into the pockets of corporate farmers, several of who are in congress representing themselves, thus are “internal lobbyist”. Powerful industrialists pay big money to hire lobbying firms to represent them in the halls (lobby) of congress. They have to be registered, etc to gain access to “your” representatives. Lobbying firms immediately hire retired Congressional Representatives and pay seven digit salaries, the size of which speaks to the value of having intimate contact with lawmakers for their business interests.  Fifteen members of congress or their spouses receive farm subsidies; I am talking about big money and not pocket change. Unite these two thoughts: congressional representatives who receive big money and lobbying activity by lobbying firms and you get “internal lobbying”—unprecedented influence in government.

These people do not just vote their own interest, which would be a simple case of conflict of interest but they induce—lobby—their fellow members to vote for their interests, perhaps in exchange for their votes on other votes. That is power an outside paid lobbyists does not have—it is something money can not buy; at least it couldn’t buy, that is until the money pope corrupted the SCOTUS, which gave us the Citizens United Supreme Court Decision.

I was curious to know what the failure of the Agriculture bill meant in terms of would the Government continue to pay farm subsidies or not because the bill failed to pass.  It was all very confusing and remains so. It is not clear on the internet. If Wikipedia doesn’t know, who does. The radical right wing was lobby against the bill. This would have been unheard of activity if those greedy few who benefited did not continue to receive payments. I am not sure how the 15 subsidy recipients voted, that information would be revealing but not decisive. What is shocking is that the public does not know what the internal lobbyists put into the fine print of their own legislation. 

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