TO LOBBY OR NOT TO LOBBY, THAT IS THE QUESTION

I've been questioning "Lobbyists" and "Special Interests Groups" for awhile now and came to a point of being very confused and frustrated. Due to my ignorance, I was approached by a lobbyist who represents public agencies and was able to interview her on her career and got a broader idea of what lobbying is all about. In this media fueled world it's easy to hear from both sides, Democratic or Republican, about how "Special Interest Groups" are bad and must be stopped. I was almost quick to jump on that bandwagon but now after speaking with this individual I have a deeper appreciation for the job and find it not to be so cut and dry after all.

Special interest groups have been apart of our political structure even before America was America. It wasn't until the Progressive Era when our country started to become highly critical and aware of lobbyists, and yet the Progressive Era itself came to pass due to heavy influence by lobbyists. The Princeton Review regards the lobbying career as the, "art of persuasion." The woman I interviewed, whom I will refer to as Jane for anonymity sake, regarded it as, "the art of education." Either way they play a crucial role in our government and we as U.S. citizens must be aware and educated of this process.

An interesting thing Jane brought up to me during the interview was, "[When Obama was a Senator] Obama's staff rocked because they obtained expert information from interest groups such as mine, and then imparted their acquired knowledge to Senator Obama, who then was able to make educated decisions on how he was going to vote in the Senate. That was the only way he was able to maintain his seat in Congress." She later hinted that information could have come from constituents or U.S. citizen as well but even so you can't really be sure if they were hired by a special interest group or not. The responsibility of a lobbyist is certainly high, and most of their time is spent watching and reading through bill after bill, making sure the issues they are fighting for are being catered to, and then they correspond to the staff which in turn dictates how the Senator would vote. It's a seemingly rigorous process and can definitely be admired, yet it's also intimidating. I'm not willing or have the time to do what lobbyists do and read through every bill, looking for every issue that I have a problem with and then start emailing my representative! I mean I had enough problems reading the HealthCare Bill and before I could even finish reading it they already voted on it!

I do agree with Jane when she brought up this idea; it is strange to see how some of these Senators, like Obama, speak out against lobbyism and yet use that very system to get ahead or maintain their seat. I'm still not quite sure if lobbying is necessarily the evil here, but maybe it's once you step into the world of Political Action Committees (PAC) in special interest groups... that's when things start to get dangerous. Considering Jane is working with public agencies, her group does not have a PAC. PACs lie more within cooperate entities. What are PACs? As far as we know they've been around since 1944 and are pockets in special interest groups where they hold money for campaigning for or against Senators. Using PACs a lobbyist could essentially promise money to a senator's campaign when facing reelection. This is where a red flag comes up. From a mere citizen's standpoint, this Political Action Committee just sounds like a fancy term for "bribe." I think we need to learn the distinction between some of these interest groups, especially the ones who are using PACs, because I now know that there are some doing great good out there, and others who are abusing the system.

Speaking of money exchange, recently laws have been created to try to keep lobbyist in check. The Lobbyist Disclosure Act (LDA) was actually put into place in 1995. It requires lobbying spending to be made public and have them frequently report their spending to the Office of the Clerk. Although it seems a lot of these tasks are left in the hands of registered lobbyist, so I could see where one might be able to abuse the system. There have also been reports of "loopholes" in the legislation so it might be fair to say it isn't fail proof. But the information is there and readily available. Evenmore so, there is a website dedicated to keeping track of lobbyist and interest groups and gives light to some of their dealings: OpenSecrets.org Where would we be without the internet?

Well I know my interest in special interest groups will not stop here, but for now I'll conclude this article. I think the most enlightening thing about the interview was when she said, and I've heard this said before, that "Lobbyist are just exercising their 1st Amendment right of freedom of speech... We are democracy in action." Despite how frustrating this process can be or how much corruption is in it, I find two key words in that statement, "exercising" and "action," that put responsibility on me as a United States Citizen. Essentially lobbyist aren't doing anything you or I couldn't do. When they find concerns in legislation they respond accordingly by sending emails or phone calls to get the eyes of the representatives on it. That's something I don't do. I think a lot of us don't do it. It's much more easier to sit on the sidelines and point a finger at problems rather than approach it.

In the end, if anything this encourages me to take more action towards the things I want to see change in the world around me, and I'm not talking merely within a relationship between a Citizen and a Representative, but with anything that I might have a problem with; cooperations, public services, my own property. We should start voicing our concerns more clearly and I think a lot of us don't and that's what's hurting our Country. I know far too many people who scourer the internet looking for things to criticize. That's not going to change anything. It's like what Teddy Roosevelt said,

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

So despite however big you think this government is and however impossible it is to change it, take courage and try anyways. Hell! The lobbyists are, so why shouldn't we?

-N.S.Soria

NOT MERELY "JUST A BILL"

The Healthcare Bill has recently been passed by our Federal Government and is certainly a turning point in our history. Whether good or bad no one can argue against that fact. Whether for or against no one can deny that this is a prevalent and important issue in our Country right now. I could easily dive into arguments against the bill, but what's done is done, and there will probably be plenty more arguments to come whether here in this blog or in the Courts. Right now I want to implore our readers to take care in those verbal battles that will occur. We, as humans, are passionate creatures and sometimes can let issues come between friendships, families, and community.

As it's said in Proverbs 15:1, "A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger." Now, as ever, we should embrace that noble device known as serenity. Issues will rise and fall like the sun, but we must be steadfast in our approach, and through serenity we will be able to make the necessary changes in people's hearts as well as the necessary changes in our government. "With patience a ruler may be persuaded, and a soft tongue will break a bone." (Proverbs 25:15) There is power in the serene approach, the kind that can effect a man's soul. That is the necessary change we need right now... our souls.

With this calm approach I believe it will give us clarity of mind to then challenge what we need to challenge, and be able to pick our battles wisely. Despite what may come, let us be in the hands of the Creator and by that be able to live courageously. There will be things we must do and say, and let us say them fearlessly. As Winston Churchill once said, "Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen." Let us approach these issues with that balance. I know I'm no god, and I know the government is far bigger than me, therefore it's my job to educate myself as much as I can and then move how I see necessary.

With all that in mind, let us act. Let us not lay stagnent by our computers or televisions, but let us be real and affect the world around us. The economy is bad, our liberties are at stake, and our country is becoming split in two (or three) but none of these issues will be resolved merely by our anger or brass criticisms, but by our solving the problems inside each of us individually, and then going out and trying to help our neighbors. Part of the problem is that we are not pursuing our dreams that we have the liberty of pursuing. Instead we either shrug problems off or wave a criticizing finger at a world bigger than us. Well, we are apart of that world, and by it we should work hard and enjoy the satisfactions of it's byproducts. As JFK famously said, "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." This is just as true now as it was then. What is it that we can do? What is it that you can do? What is it that you need to do? I think we all have the answer inside of us if we are truly searching for it.

I'm writing about these things because I need this reminder just as much as you do. I'm frustrated and can easily become heated about these issues, but I need to keep a sharp and calm mind, not merely for my benefit (Proverbs 16:24) but for the benefit of the people around me. (Matthew 22:36-41) These are important issues so let us handle them by using just as, if not moreso, important standards. Then and only then can we truly make a change.

-N.S.Soria

Ron Paul on the issue.

WHAT IS THE US EXPORT-IMPORT BANK?

One slightly hidden part of the federal government, which also originated during FDR’s Administration, is referred to today as the US Export-Import bank (the Ex-Im Bank). The Ex-Im Bank exists, according to Sec. 2(b)(1)(A) of its charter, to “minimize competition (through export subsidies)… and to reach international agreements to reduce government subsidized export financing” (SOURCE). The main purpose of this largely financed arm of the Federal Government should cause a pause right away. Essentially, the charter claims that this is an organization, which manages the subsidizing powers of the government (in foreign trade), in an effort to eventually weed out the need for government subsidies altogether. It’s like creating a government-subsidized health insurance organization, which works towards the creation of a world where cheaply provided governmental insurance would no longer be in demand. When have we ever experienced a government bureaucracy efficiently decreasing in its own size and power?

But what exactly, does this extra Federal Bank do? Well, that’s a great question, that I’m still trying to navigate after two days of tossing and turning over government documents and the void-of-actual-numbers website (SOURCE) that the Ex-Im Bank manages. Here’s what I have gathered so far to share with all of you (and for any economists out there, please feel free to elaborate, correct, or better-explain any economic details in which I attempt to unravel in this post)…

The Ex-Im Bank is the official “export credit agency” of the United States. They seek to aid in financing the export of goods and services, with the justification of seeking to contribute to the employment of U.S. workers. The “credit” provided to foreign buyers includes “export credit insurance, loan guarantees, and direct loans”. Their website is careful to specify, as often as possible, “80% of their transactions directly benefit U.S. small businesses” (SOURCE). As much as I wanted to find access to easily understood numbers on their actual website, it proved much easier to turn to other reporting agencies in order to figure out who are really the biggest beneficiaries of this Ex-Im Bank.

Maybe 80% of “transactions” benefit small businesses, but that might just say a lot about the massive budget they maintain, if they can make that claim while simultaneously providing Exxon Mobil with a $3 billion loan in order to fund an oil venture in Papua New Guinea (SOURCE). Correct me if I’m wrong, but I never considered Exxon Mobil as small for size, or as one for creating many American jobs…

Large US corporations aren’t the only bodies that seem to have undue clout amongst the bureaucrats running the Ex-Im Bank. China has also been noticed as having received up to $4 billion in US subsidies from the Ex-Im Bank annually (SOURCE). And these estimated numbers would not even be able to account for the indirect ways in which Chinese buyers and sellers have been assisted. Chinese ethanol benefits from an additional U.S. subsidy. “In 2004, the Ex-Im subsidized construction of an “ethanol dehydration facility” in Trinidad and Tobago—exactly the sort of facility through which foreign ethanol passes duty-free into the U.S.” The very next year, China more than tripled its rate of ethanol exports: the vast majority imported to the US (SOURCE) ….

Would I dare argue, then, that this large Federal Bureaucracy could possibly lapse at times and be more concerned with China’s welfare than that of its very own people? I sure hope the Ex-Im’s bias toward Chinese goods and investment doesn’t have anything to do with the $895 billion in government securities it had accumulated as of last December (SOURCE). The truth is, the US now depends on foreign bodies to buy “securities” from the US Treasury in order to finance our national debt. Without countries like China, Japan, and the Oil Wealth Nations buying out debt, our dollar would’ve collapsed a long time ago (with the rampant creation of money that the Federal Reserve is somehow entitled to). Therefore, the more debt we create, the more dependent we are on countries like China to finance it. The more China finances our debt, the more intertwined our economies become. The more intertwined our economies, the more inclined our Federal financial institutions might be to favor Chinese trade and investment.

But what’s so wrong with this? Is it really so bad to be economically interdependent in an age of post-industrialization and globalization? And in the midst of this era of greater global trade and dependence, will we need larger governmental bodies, like the Ex-Im Bank to finance and protect us in the process? I would argue no on all accounts. The Ex-Im Bank seems nothing more than a glorified form of welfare for the corporate world. And just like we argued last week, the realm of business would also benefit much more richly from the creativity that abounds amidst real competition void of governmental interference. And as for our entangling alliance with the People’s Republic of China… well, let’s just say that I can’t wait to tackle that sucker next week…

-E.C.Soria

PERTURBED PRESIDENTIAL POLICIES PART II

As you may have gathered from last week’s post, I’m currently in the midst of a long struggle, torn between my natural tendency to look to my president for great “change” and my desire to hope for a renewed sense of the authority that the Constitution ought to hold in how we are governed. The ever-looming question remains, though, what are we to do in times of great economic, social, or political struggles? This is why I’d like to branch out from our case-study of Andrew Jackson and consider instead the moral dilemmas that were faced by Franklin Delano Roosevelt in his decisions to deviate from the Constitution.

The presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt came much later, and at a very different point of political and national turbulence than that of Andrew Jackson. FDR entered during a time of national desperation. Unemployment was reaching record highs and continuously increasing, farm prices were falling dramatically, bank runs were costing the American public billions of dollars. (SOURCE).

In FDR’s first Inaugural Address, he claims his anticipation of departing from the “normal balance” between executive and legislative authority in an effort to meet the tasks before the country. In the event of Congress not abiding to such measures, FDR stated, “I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis—broad Executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe”. SOURCE) The American public believed themselves to be facing a foe just as threatening as a foreign enemy, and the popular consensus was waiting on the President to act in their favor.

As imaginable, FDR took office in 1932 with great support from the voters. After such a successful election, members of Congress were unprecedentedly eager to work with Roosevelt in order to secure prospects for reelection. Roosevelt strategically utilizes this political clout by almost immediately calling Congress into a special session, to draft what historians refer to as “the Hundred Days Policies” (or the beginning of the New Deal). (SOURCE see pg.5). During these first hundred days in office, Roosevelt was able to pass major Banking and Economic Acts, with little to no hesitation from Congress. Several years later, Congress had to pass more legislation in order to ensure the President had adequate resources to follow through with the Hundred Days Policies. Many of which were monumental pieces of legislation, because of their having granted powers to the Presidency in being able to act alone in the allocation of large budgets coming from Federal dollars. The Emergency Relief Appropriation (ERA) of 1935 is one example (SOURCE see pg.5). Altogether, throughout the span of the New Deal Era, there were a countless amount of new programs and agencies developed to address the social and economic woes of the American people. Most of which, we are still living with today, in the form of federal government bureaucracies. The Social Security Act, Farm Security Administration, and the Fair Labor Standards Act might be a few of the pieces of legislation today remembered as having protected the poor, preserved American Agriculture, and defended the laborer from an evil “laissez-faire” capitalistic system.

But have we, as common and current US citizens, cared to step back for a bit to consider the ramifications of this heroic, powerful, and historic presidential figure? Why should I bother critiquing a president we should probably be more concerned with honoring for his courage in carrying a nation through such a hopeless time? I personally think the most interesting part of FDR’s legislative binge-stint was the reorganization that had to come about within the Executive branch. A couple years after the Hundred Days Policies, FDR was also successful in passing the Executive Office of the President (EOP) Act. The EOP consists of immediate staff to the president, called the White House Office, and the Bureau of the Budget: a minor departmental transfer originally housed in the treasury department” (SOURCE see page 8). This act was primarily passed in order to allow the President to formulate and execute policy ideas within the White House. This was a monumental transfer of power from the legislative branch into the House of the Executive, but done so in the name of “waging war against an emergency”. Why then, is this EOP concept unquestioningly inherited by all of Roosevelt’s successors to the Office of the Presidency as well? Even though Roosevelt might have seen the expansion of the presidency as necessarily unconstitutional, but inherently temporary, we are still operating largely under the institutionalization of an inflated Executive, as established during the Great Depression.

What’s my largest problem with the cheapening of the Executive Branch into a short-cut policy-making machine on demand for the American majority? It seems we have only examples in our history of this pattern having tipped the scales of the checks and balances system, which is designed so carefully in order to protect the people from encroaching powers-plays by the government, by helping uphold the authority of the Constitution (an authority that ought to be greater than any person or institution can achieve). In the more extreme case of Andrew Jackson, we were at risk of losing Constitutional accountability governmental figures should have in order to not be able to assume whatever powers they might see fit for their office. But in the more subdued and humanitarian case-study of FDR, we are left with the story of a hero who pulls a country out of a Depression, but leaves the legacy of a contemporary American public more dependent on the growth of the government for their everyday needs (even without the looming “war-like” threat of an economic depression).

The legacy of governmental expansion has never been successfully maintained as “temporary”. And aside from the fact that we don’t have funds to sustain such consistent growth in the long-run, I’m more bothered by thinking we don’t have the human capacity to maintain and grow our creativity to match a government that is already promising to provide for the “common goals” of America. As quoted by Ron Paul, a young historian Alexis DeTocueville, was most impressed while traveling the early United States by the ability of Americans to form voluntary associations in order to achieve common goals. He wrote, “wherever, at the head of some new undertaking, you see the Government in France, or a man of rank in England, in the United States you will be sure to find an association” (Paul, The Revolution, 75). The reason why it might be difficult for us to start to expect less from the figure-head of our country is because it means we will surely have to expect more from ourselves. Instead of waiting for Obama to create the change in my neighborhood, I would only have myself to look to. As scary or daunting as that might appear, I would rather try my hardest and use whatever creative abilities I have in the process, even with potential failure looming. To not do so, would be to waste the freedoms that I have inherited, limit the responsibility human beings ought to have for fellow human beings, and crush the development and redefinition of the dreams we have as a nation for our nation. Let’s put creating, dreaming, and goal-setting back in the hands of everyday human beings.

-E.C.Soria