So, you thought your vote counts? Hell No. You can claim no ownership to the candidate of your choice because they are just robots that belong to the highest paid lobbyist in Washington. All that crap they spewed about what the American people want was rubbish. The reality is that they now represent not the majority of people who voted for them. They now represent corporate issues. Have you ever heard a child say they want to be a lobbyist when they grow up? No, because you don’t even know who those creatures are that circle around Washington politics everyday.

Lobbying is a notorious secretive business. How do you even get that job? Is there a college degree in that stuff? NO. Yet few industries have more impact on our daily lives. The Boy Scouts have lobbyists, the AFLCIO have lobbyists even Apple have lobbyists. Everyone has a lobbyist. The influence business in Washington DC is the third largest business after government and tourism.

In Washington K street is where you will find those blood sucking influential leeches that suck the life out of our candidates till they promise to do what they want them to do in power. Yes, K street North West is the street where the city’s most influential lobbyists have their headquarters. We need to be able to see what goes on behind their closed doors to the public.

The Catholic Church has lobbyists. In January 2011 the business of Washington lobbying was reported to the American Bar Association seeking reform. It was called, Lobbying Law in the Spotlight: Challenges and Proposed Improvements. It was a report of the Task Force on Federal Lobbying Laws Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice.

There is a school for aspiring lobbyist at The American University. The definition of a lobbyist is someone who advocates for someone else and is getting paid for it. The fingerprints of lobbyists are all over daily life. Some of their influential successes on our law makers is that the succeeded in defeating to cap credit card interest rates. So, the credit card companies screwed all Americans in raising credit card rates and fees till none of us can even get a card now. It ruined many American’s credit ratings.

The lobbyists made pizza count as a vegetable on school lunches. That means your kids won’t even have a green vegetable each day unless you provide it to them at dinnertime. The lobbyists wrote a lot of the health care reform law so they can make profits combining hospitals into large powerful groups.

It is estimated that $9,000,000,000 yes that is 9 Billion dollars a year is spent on lobbying and related advocacy. If you are a top lobbyist, you can make millions of dollars per year. What is worse is that there are an estimated 100,000 people working in the industry supporting all that in Washington.

These people are there and get paid so well because the expectations of their influence on the politicos can make corporations even richer. Lets look on a small scale. Say you own a construction company and you want to build on land in your town that is currently zoned for open space area. You can hire a professional lobbyist to work on the local government and urge them to put the land up for sale and even get the local government to sell the land directly to the construction company. It does happen.

The good of lobbying is that if it is a cause you believe in, you can go to members of Congress and be passionate and truthful and be the opposite of what people think lobbyists are. The bad is that most people think lobbyist are sleazy and are doing something against the public interest and just making corporations richer by tainting the laws to go their way.

The business of lobbying is shrouded in secrecy. Only a few are invited to even be close enough to have a conversation with an elected official like a Congressman. Most lobbyists are good friends with the politico’s anyway. Any time Congress is in session the lobbyists are there. Otherwise they are pimping themselves at meetings describing what areas they specialize in promoting.

The philosophy of one hand washes the other or I’ll help you if you help me is no different than organized crime. In Washington the lobbyists give large amounts of money to the politicians in the form of campaign contributions then the candidate does something with the laws to help the client. I say clean up Washington and throw all the bums out and just do what the voters want.