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Speaker 1: Hi, folks, Chuck here with your Saturday Select. Because it's

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Speaker 1: election season, I thought we'd dig back into the archives

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Speaker 1: from October and find out how lobbying works. You may

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Speaker 1: think lobbying is awful, and it certainly can be, but

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Speaker 1: also serves a purpose. Uh you know, I'll let you

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Speaker 1: make your own mind up about it. But here we

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Speaker 1: go with how lobbying works. Right now, welcome to Stuff

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Speaker 1: you should know, a production of My Heart Radios How

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh

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Speaker 1: Clark and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant and crickets. So weird. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we're doing this um ghost style. Yeah, So what happened

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Speaker 1: was and I didn't you explain to me? But I

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Speaker 1: don't know. Maybe my mind was elsewhere and I didn't

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Speaker 1: fully understand. But what happened is guest producer Noel got

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Speaker 1: the record, he could put the mouse in the hamster wheel,

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Speaker 1: got the computer running and left. And now you're a

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Speaker 1: little freaked out, aren't Well it's this is out of

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Speaker 1: close to eight hundred shows, this is literally the first

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Speaker 1: time it's ever just been you and me in a room. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: isn't that crazy? Yeah? It really is, isn't it. It's

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Speaker 1: I feel like I don't know. I feel like there

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Speaker 1: no one in here, even though no one ever guides

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Speaker 1: us that we should just I don't know that we're

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Speaker 1: gonna cut up and curse. And it's like when the

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Speaker 1: teacher has left the room, it feels like there's a

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Speaker 1: vast field, a portal to another dimension to my right,

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Speaker 1: where Jarry usually said, So, I had no idea what

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Speaker 1: that extra silent human three ft from this meant. I

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Speaker 1: think now this means that we've been put out to pasture. Wow,

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Speaker 1: this is disconcerting. Alright. I feel like you're gonna like

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Speaker 1: knife me or something. I could right now, I know

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Speaker 1: and whatever. Now until we published the episode, Nope, no

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Speaker 1: one would ever know. Wow, And that's gruesome. All right,

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Speaker 1: this is just weird. Let's let's do it. You ready, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: good choice. By the way, Yeah, I don't remember what

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Speaker 1: episode we picked this in. We were talking about something

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Speaker 1: and lobbying came up, where like we should just do

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Speaker 1: one on lobbying. Well, here it is. Yeah, it's it's

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Speaker 1: I'm glad we're doing this because we'll clear up some misconceptions. Uh,

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Speaker 1: it's not always evil, just the time maybe more. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: um yeah, I remember when we said we were going

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Speaker 1: to do a lobbying when we got a lot of

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Speaker 1: emails from lobbyists who were like, please, please, please, don't

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Speaker 1: just trash our profession like we ever would. Um they're

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Speaker 1: they were like, lobbying is actually it can be a

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Speaker 1: really good thing, and sure that's why. So we got

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Speaker 1: a lot of feedback before this thing even came out,

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Speaker 1: which hopefully will help us. Well, they're understandably a very

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Speaker 1: defensive group. Yes, everyone thinks it's just rotten and corrupt

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Speaker 1: across all channels, and a rotten to the core. Um.

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Speaker 1: And the reason I and just about everyone else walking

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Speaker 1: the planet thinks that lobbyists are rotten it is because

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Speaker 1: of some very high profile cases like remember Jack Abramoff,

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Speaker 1: who can forget what a and I usually don't publicly

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Speaker 1: trash people, but that guy was a pile of garbage.

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Speaker 1: You know, there's really no I was trying to find

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Speaker 1: some other way around it. It was like, no, he

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Speaker 1: was awful, Yeah, and just ripped people off, unabashedly ripped

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Speaker 1: off Indian bribed officials, bribe people, pocketed money, and he

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Speaker 1: was a highly highly successful, obvious people. He was working

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Speaker 1: for he was he's not a good fellow. No, but again,

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Speaker 1: he was a successful lobbyist. He was at the top

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Speaker 1: of it of his field for many years. Actually. Um,

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Speaker 1: and it wasn't until two thousand and six when he

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Speaker 1: was convicted of I believe, like bribery and corruption and

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Speaker 1: all sorts of stuff, tax evasion, all kinds of stuff. Yeah. Um,

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Speaker 1: and I ended up serving three three years. I think

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Speaker 1: he did three three years in the pokey Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: supposedly had to pay a lot of restitution and tax fines. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: But who knows how that stuff works out. No one

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Speaker 1: ever follows up to see, you know. We just say, oh,

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Speaker 1: he got a he's supposed to pay all these people back.

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Speaker 1: Sure it happened, Yeah, who knows. He probably found a

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Speaker 1: loophole to work on. He's probably working on a lawsuit

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Speaker 1: against us right this moment. Chuck, Oh, can you not

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Speaker 1: publicly call someone garbage? I think you can. Okay, can

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Speaker 1: we find out Can we read this opening statement from

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Speaker 1: eighteen sixty nine, Yeah, because I think it makes a

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Speaker 1: pretty good point that Jack Abramoff wasn't the first despised lobbyist. No.

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Speaker 1: This is written by Emily Edson Briggs, who was a

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Speaker 1: Washington D c. Newspaper correspondent UM at a time where

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Speaker 1: there weren't a lot of women doing that, which is

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Speaker 1: kind of cool. And I think she was the first

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Speaker 1: allowed into the Congressional press room. Yeah, they said let her,

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Speaker 1: and she'll never say anything bad because we gave her

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Speaker 1: this job. And she's like, he fell from my big

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Speaker 1: cookies plan. So she wrote a column talk called the

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Speaker 1: Dragons of the Lobby. So you probably know where this

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Speaker 1: is headed. And the pending line of the column said,

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Speaker 1: winding in and out through the long, devious basement passage,

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Speaker 1: crawling through the corridors, trailing at slimy length from gallery

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Speaker 1: to committee room. At last it lies stretched at full

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Speaker 1: length on the floor of the Congress, this dazzling reptile,

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Speaker 1: this huge, scaly serpent of the lobby. That could have

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Speaker 1: been our Halloween episode. It really could have. Maybe we

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Speaker 1: should gus see that. I think we should with horror

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Speaker 1: a little bit of sound effect. Yeah, that was in

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Speaker 1: eighteen sixty nine. Yeah, not very flattering, um And it

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Speaker 1: was actually I think it did come at a time

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Speaker 1: when lobbying and lobbyists were really getting a choke hold

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Speaker 1: on um on Congress on legislation on sweetheart deals from

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Speaker 1: the federal government. Um, but lobbying goes further back than that,

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Speaker 1: and lobbyists have been despised even further back than that

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Speaker 1: as a matter of fact. Yeah, and it's uh again,

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Speaker 1: it's something this article makes. I thought, this is a

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Speaker 1: really well written article. Actually, yeah, this was the day

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Speaker 1: Ruse article, and he did a good job. He points

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Speaker 1: out that the knee jerk reaction for your average person

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Speaker 1: might be to say, just make it all illegal, get

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Speaker 1: rid of the lobby because it's awful, But he makes

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Speaker 1: a good point that it is. It is necessary. The

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Speaker 1: First Amendment in our own constitution says the right of

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Speaker 1: the people to petition the government for a redress of

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Speaker 1: grievances is necessary and constitutional and mandatory. Yeah, and that's

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Speaker 1: what lobbyists do, is uh. It's not always a huge corporation.

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Speaker 1: A lot of times they'll speak for the Girl Scouts

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Speaker 1: or the Boy Scouts or you know, all kinds of

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Speaker 1: special interest groups, and we all have them, so you me,

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Speaker 1: everyone listening in America has a constitutional right to go

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Speaker 1: and petition Congress to say, hey, guys, you guys aren't

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Speaker 1: paying enough attention to government waste or NASA deserves way

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Speaker 1: more funding than you're giving it. Whatever, you can go

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Speaker 1: do that. That's lobbying technically, but unfortunately, almost from the beginning, uh,

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Speaker 1: corporate and big business special interest groups figured out a

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Speaker 1: way to basically exploit that to their to their own benefit. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it's uh. Rus also points out, and we'll get

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Speaker 1: to this later, U, which is one of the big problems.

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Speaker 1: It's necessary because Congress in their staff don't have time

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Speaker 1: to uh that's well again, we'll get to that later. Okay,

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Speaker 1: you don't want to spoil it, all right, but they

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Speaker 1: don't have time to go through the myriad request and

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Speaker 1: and uh information deluge of information that's necessary to make

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Speaker 1: an educated decision, and so much so that Senator John F.

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Speaker 1: Kennedy in said, uh, that we are in many cases

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Speaker 1: expert technicians capable of not we are, I'm sorry, lobbyists

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Speaker 1: are in many cases, I'm sorry, are in many cases

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Speaker 1: expert technicians capable of examining complex and difficult subjects and

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Speaker 1: clear understandable fashion. So that's the reason we need them

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Speaker 1: in many cases is to literally explain stuff too. Congress

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Speaker 1: people and staff strapped for time and resources. It should

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Speaker 1: be said, though, that Um. When Kennedy wrote that in

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Speaker 1: the mid fifties, lobbying was not much of a thing.

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Speaker 1: It had like it was established, had been established for

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Speaker 1: a couple hundred years. People hated lobbyists. There were huge

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Speaker 1: um lobbyists scandals in the Gilded Age from the Civil

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Speaker 1: War to the nineteenth century. But in the mid fifties

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Speaker 1: lobbying was not a huge thing. It wasn't so um.

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Speaker 1: What he said, though, is accurate, and it's still is

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Speaker 1: accurate today. If you are an incoming congress person, Um,

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Speaker 1: you make your name both to your constituency and in

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Speaker 1: your party by getting bills passed, by coming up with

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Speaker 1: bills and passing them. Right, look at all the work

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Speaker 1: I accomplished. And then if you get enough, you may

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Speaker 1: end up on a nice maybe even a committee chair,

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Speaker 1: and then eventually a party leader. And all that is

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Speaker 1: because you introduced legislation that was favored and got past.

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Speaker 1: The thing is, you don't have the time or the

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Speaker 1: staff to research and write legislation, so you have to

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Speaker 1: you have to turn to lobbyists lobbying groups and say, hey,

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Speaker 1: you guys are literally experts on this topic. I need

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Speaker 1: your help. Uh, educate me, help me write this, and

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Speaker 1: then um will will be friends. The problem is is

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Speaker 1: there's not a there's not a special interest group like

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Speaker 1: you said, whether it's the Girl Scouts or whether it's

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Speaker 1: uh the Chamber of Commerce that doesn't have a slamp

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Speaker 1: that isn't going to try to slam the legislation in

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Speaker 1: their favor. So that means that the laws that are

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Speaker 1: written in this country today are the legislative equivalents of avertorials,

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Speaker 1: you know, kind of thin on actual content and really

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Speaker 1: heavy on stuff that benefits the corporations running this show.

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Speaker 1: You know who would make good lobbyists? Who they're in

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Speaker 1: this room right now? Oh you think so. I was

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Speaker 1: just thinking, like generally unbiased research presented so someone can

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Speaker 1: make a decision. Yeah, that's kind of what we do,

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Speaker 1: except we're not paid like lobbyists make a lot of dough. Uh.

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Speaker 1: In fact, in two thousand fourteen, lobbyists and these are

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Speaker 1: people that are officially registered as lobbyists, which will get

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Speaker 1: to there are a lot more people doing lobby esque

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Speaker 1: work that aren't officially registered, but official registered lobbyists. Uh,

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Speaker 1: we're paid out to three point two four billion dollars

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Speaker 1: in two thousand fourteen, and that is only divided among

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Speaker 1: how many people? Was it about ten thousand six people?

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Speaker 1: What are you kidding? That's how many registered lobbyists there were,

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Speaker 1: right and this year and that's but again just the

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Speaker 1: registered one from a high of about fourteen and change.

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Speaker 1: And when what's that two thousand six or seven? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and the two two thousand seven changes came along, and

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Speaker 1: it's not because there are fewer lobbyists there there that

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Speaker 1: just gave rise to people, or gave people the ability

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Speaker 1: to be like, oh, I'm not a lobbyist anymore. Because

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Speaker 1: here's the thing. If you are a registered lobbyist, you

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Speaker 1: are subject to some very strict ethical guidelines, legal guidelines,

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Speaker 1: scrutiny of your business practices, and there's a lot of

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Speaker 1: stuff you can't do. You just you're just completely outlawed

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Speaker 1: from doing certain things. If if you can just skirt

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Speaker 1: the definition of a lobbyists, it's like open season, man,

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Speaker 1: it's the wild West on Capitol Hill for you, and

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Speaker 1: you can make as much money as you possibly can

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Speaker 1: while doing the same things just not having to register

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Speaker 1: as a lobbyist. All right, But that's a lot of teasing.

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Speaker 1: This is the like but this is the current state

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Speaker 1: of the American legislative process. Are legislators for a lot

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Speaker 1: on special interest groups almost entirely to tell them what

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Speaker 1: they need to know from their slant, and then actually

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Speaker 1: writing the legislation for them to go take the Congress

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Speaker 1: and be like what I got. I'm gonna make my

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Speaker 1: name with this. All right. There's one other thing too

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Speaker 1: that we should say, and this is a this is

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Speaker 1: one reason why lobbying is so pernicious. Um. Lobbyists also

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Speaker 1: serve as major fundraisers for the very politicians that they're lobbying. Yeah, like,

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Speaker 1: I didn't give them money. I just called a fundraiser

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Speaker 1: that raised four and a half million dollars at you know,

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Speaker 1: three thousand dollars a plate. But hey, they they gave

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Speaker 1: him the money. Right, they don't know me anything. I'm

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Speaker 1: just doing this because I'm a patriotic citizen of the

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Speaker 1: United States. And I'll see you Monday, Senator. And I

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Speaker 1: like to overcharge for salmon. Yeah, isn't that crazy. So

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Speaker 1: that's the current state, everybody. Let's go back to the beginning,

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Speaker 1: because lobbyists have been around basically as long as America

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Speaker 1: has Yeah, let's take a little break and we'll we'll

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Speaker 1: get to the tease stuff and start off with a

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Speaker 1: little bit of history, all right. Uh, there's some misconceptions

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Speaker 1: about the history of the word itself. Laure says that

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Speaker 1: it was invented uh in the Willard Hotel in Washington,

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Speaker 1: d C. In that lobby when U Ulysses S. Grant

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Speaker 1: would kick back and have a drink like he so

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Speaker 1: like to do, uh, and would get disgusted by what

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Speaker 1: he called those damn lobbyists that we're hanging out there, yeah,

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Speaker 1: asking him for stuff. Gimme, gimme, gimme. Yeah. And while

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Speaker 1: that may have, um, that may have given rise to

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Speaker 1: the term popular already wise here, but you can trace

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Speaker 1: it back to England, uh in the sixteen forties, when

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Speaker 1: they talked about the lobby in the House of Commons

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Speaker 1: where you could go right up to your representatives and

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Speaker 1: in your cute little wig and say, here's what I

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Speaker 1: think you should do, right, and here's some here's some

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Speaker 1: good old fashioned English pounds in your pocket. And I

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Speaker 1: mean that's always just gone with it, part and parcel. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know, if not outright bribery, at least favors or

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Speaker 1: quid pro quo or tip for tad or football tickets,

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Speaker 1: the jackal and hide Beyonce tickets, all sorts of stuff. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: first class or not first class? No one flies first class.

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Speaker 1: Talking about the lear jet, the true first class. Yea,

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Speaker 1: the private jet. Didn't they do with first class? Analysis

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Speaker 1: called business class because of class resentment in the United States. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and now they've well, it depends on the airline. There's

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Speaker 1: all sorts of new rules and special things you can

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Speaker 1: pay for, all right. So, uh, in the United States,

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Speaker 1: from the very first session of Congress, there were lobbying

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Speaker 1: efforts and people treating congress. Uh. I'm gonna say congressmen

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Speaker 1: for this one, because this was in We're gonna say

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Speaker 1: congress person for later on. The women were at home

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Speaker 1: brewing beer in their households, but they were applying congressmen

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Speaker 1: with treats and dinners. And that was a direct quote

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Speaker 1: from Pennsylvania Senator William maclay from the very first session

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Speaker 1: of Congress. He was saying, Yeah, they're lobbyists here. They're

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Speaker 1: basically trying to bribe people. They're trying to install the

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Speaker 1: Terrifact of seventeen eighty nine, which established um Congress's ability

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Speaker 1: to basically extract duties and taxes on goods in the

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Speaker 1: United States in order to support the government. Let's go

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Speaker 1: out to dinner instead, And the New York merchants were like,

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Speaker 1: you don't do that. Let me get you hammered three

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Speaker 1: ways from Sunday. What are you doing later? Yeah, I'll

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Speaker 1: tell you what you're doing. You're gonna finish. It can't

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Speaker 1: go wrong in one sitting. Uh uh. Then apparently the

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Speaker 1: Bank of the United States was one of the first

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Speaker 1: big corrupt organizations as far as literally having politicians in

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Speaker 1: their pocket paying the money. Yeah. Like, um, the United

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Speaker 1: States used to have things like like an actual centralized bank.

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Speaker 1: And Andrew Jackson came along. It's like, this thing is

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Speaker 1: just way too corrupt. We need to get rid of

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Speaker 1: it and put me on your money. Yeah, but the

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Speaker 1: the scandals associated with it where things like, um, the

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Speaker 1: National Bank had on its board as board members who

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Speaker 1: are being paid by the bank, sitting congressman who were

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Speaker 1: writing legislation in favor of the bank. Yeah, this quote

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Speaker 1: is the best. Massachusetts Senator Daniel Webster sent a letter

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Speaker 1: to the Bank of the United States that said this,

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Speaker 1: among other things, since I arrived here, I have had

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Speaker 1: an application to be concerned professionally against the bank, which

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Speaker 1: I've declined. Of course, though I believe my retainer has

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Speaker 1: not been renewed or refreshed as usual. Uh, if it

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Speaker 1: be wished that my relation to the bank should be continued,

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Speaker 1: it may be well to send me the usual retainer.

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Speaker 1: In other words, I've noticed that you're not paying me. Now.

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Speaker 1: People are telling me to write legislation against you. I'm

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Speaker 1: turning them down for now. You may want to send

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00:17:21,160 --> 00:17:24,040
Speaker 1: that money again if you would like this, Love Daniel,

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Speaker 1: you know, like he flat out said, the bribes have

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Speaker 1: sort of dried up. I've noticed, So why don't you

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Speaker 1: start sending those again? Unbelievable history. So you talked about

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Speaker 1: the Gilded Age, post Civil Wars, all the close of

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Speaker 1: the nineteenth century. We like to think that America's railroads

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Speaker 1: were built on grit and determination, but in fact it

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Speaker 1: was rife with insider deals and uh scandal, right, what

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Speaker 1: was it called the credit mobile? Your scandal? Yeah? I

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Speaker 1: looked into this a little bit. It's mind boggling, basically,

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Speaker 1: um union's mind. How overt it was. Yeah, but but

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Speaker 1: even just like it was not just crooked in one way,

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Speaker 1: it was crooked in a number of ways that formed

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Speaker 1: one big, huge crooked thing that Congress was involved in.

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Speaker 1: The Union Pacific Railroad started a company that served as

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Speaker 1: the soul agent of building and managing the Union Pacific Railroad.

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Speaker 1: Okay um. And then they issued stock in this stuff,

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Speaker 1: and they used Credit Mobile, Mobilier and um Union Pacific

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Speaker 1: itself to basically over charge and overpay one another so

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Speaker 1: that the value of the stock went through the roof. Okay.

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Speaker 1: So it's a stock massaging scheme to begin with. It

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Speaker 1: like an insider deal with yourself, right to raise the

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Speaker 1: value artificially of your stock. Right. And then they took

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Speaker 1: these these shares in this company and started handing them

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Speaker 1: out to Congress at a disc count in price. That's

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Speaker 1: all congressated to do was go sell them on the

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Speaker 1: market for their face value, which was again artificially inflated.

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Speaker 1: And they made a bunch of cash. And they were

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Speaker 1: taking these as bribes for giving like um land grants

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Speaker 1: or breaking treaties with Native Americans so that the Union

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Speaker 1: Pacific Railroad could build their railroad across the Western States. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and this was they did this because, believe it or not,

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Speaker 1: at the time, there wasn't a lot of private investors

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Speaker 1: ponying up money for this railroad because it was sort

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Speaker 1: of a new thing and it was Yeah, they didn't know.

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Speaker 1: Although it was a great idea, they didn't know. Like

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Speaker 1: all investors, what they care about is getting their money

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Speaker 1: back in quick fashion, and they just didn't know if

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Speaker 1: that was going to be possible. And I mean, there's

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Speaker 1: definitely something to be said for the federal government to

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Speaker 1: step in and be like, look, we think that this

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Speaker 1: is really going to help things out. We really want

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Speaker 1: to fund it. But does it have to be totally

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Speaker 1: fraught with corruption while that happens? You know, no is

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Speaker 1: the answer. Not yet. Uh. And then there was the

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Speaker 1: famous guilded age lobby is Sam Ward, who um he

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Speaker 1: basically invented the social lobby. So while he wouldn't we'll

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00:20:06,640 --> 00:20:09,800
Speaker 1: get into direct lobby versus social lobby, but social lobby

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Speaker 1: is basically in sam Ward's case, he was a great chef,

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Speaker 1: and he was like, I'm gonna throw these great parties.

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna have great food and fine wine. I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: invite uh, special interest groups and corporation heads and politicians

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Speaker 1: and get him in the same room. But we're not

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Speaker 1: going to talk about that stuff directly. We're just all

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Speaker 1: gonna get hammered together and have a great time, become friends.

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Speaker 1: That was that was his job. Friends do things for

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Speaker 1: one another. Right. Yeah, well, I don't think we ever

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Speaker 1: even said what K Street was. By the way, K

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Speaker 1: Street is literally K the letter K Street. We're all

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Speaker 1: just about every lobby in the country has an office. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so that explains that if people are other going, yeah,

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Speaker 1: you're right, but it's like seeing um Madison Avenue when

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Speaker 1: you refer to advertising or Wall Street. Yeah. Um. So

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Speaker 1: lobbying just kind of after the guilded Aga, America was

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Speaker 1: sick to death of lobbying and lobbyists and didn't want

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Speaker 1: to have anything to do with it. Um. So lobbying went.

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Speaker 1: Didn't go away, but it fell to the wayside a

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Speaker 1: little bit. It was still a thing um throughout the

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Speaker 1: twentieth century, it just kind of waxed and waned. In

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Speaker 1: the mid forties, I believe Congress was like, we actually

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Speaker 1: kind of need these guys, so let's set up some

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Speaker 1: rules for dealing with them. Um Because at this time,

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Speaker 1: already what John Kennedy was writing about was true. You

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Speaker 1: had a brain drain going on from Capitol Hill to

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Speaker 1: k Street, where people would go and um, become an

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Speaker 1: aid to a senator or a congress person and make contacts,

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Speaker 1: get a little bit of experience, and then after a

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Speaker 1: couple of years they would move on over to Kay

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Speaker 1: Street to a lobbying firm, make anywhere between five to

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Speaker 1: ten times what they were as the congressional aid. And um,

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Speaker 1: Kay Street was sucking the talent away from Congress. And

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Speaker 1: so these congress people in the forties said, hey, um,

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Speaker 1: we need to work with these people because we need them,

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Speaker 1: so let's make up some rules. Even still, lobbying was

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Speaker 1: nothing like you would recognize it today. It wasn't until

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Speaker 1: the seventies and eighties when business did an about face

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Speaker 1: of dealing with the government. Up to that point, it

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Speaker 1: was like, government, stay to stay out of our business.

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Speaker 1: That's the lobbying we want to do, is to keep

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Speaker 1: you off of our backs, keep you from regulating our stuff,

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Speaker 1: to stay out of our business. And then at some point,

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Speaker 1: and I'm not exactly sure who figured this out, but

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Speaker 1: some lobbyists convinced corporations like, hey, guys, you're doing this

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Speaker 1: all wrong. You guys could get mind boggling amounts of

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00:22:38,960 --> 00:22:42,439
Speaker 1: money from the government in the form of subsidies, are

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00:22:42,520 --> 00:22:46,200
Speaker 1: great contracts or sweetheart deals just by using our services

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Speaker 1: and lobbying exploded, and we'll just take comparatively a tiny

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Speaker 1: bit of that. Even though it's a ton of money

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00:22:54,480 --> 00:22:58,280
Speaker 1: for individual lobbyists, it's nothing to these corporations, right exactly.

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Speaker 1: And I yeah, like the day Ruse gave a really

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Speaker 1: great example of um Northrop Gumman Grumman in uh in

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Speaker 1: two thousand and twelve or something like that, I believe

390
00:23:07,320 --> 00:23:10,960
Speaker 1: thunder Mifflin. Yeah, they spent a hundred and seventy six

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Speaker 1: million dollars from from in fourteen years from twelve, which

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Speaker 1: that's nothing to them because in that time, in two

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Speaker 1: thousand twelve itself, Northrop Grumman got a hundred and seventy

394
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Speaker 1: six million dollar or oh no, a hundred and eighty

395
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Speaker 1: nine million dollar contract for a cyber security system for

396
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Speaker 1: the d O D so that that one contract paid

397
00:23:32,480 --> 00:23:35,479
Speaker 1: for fourteen years of lobbying expenses, right yeah, and then

398
00:23:35,480 --> 00:23:39,119
Speaker 1: they got a one point seven billion dollar contract to

399
00:23:39,240 --> 00:23:44,480
Speaker 1: build five drones. And that's just Northrop Grumman. Like, you

400
00:23:44,480 --> 00:23:46,760
Speaker 1: can't really pick on them. The reason why we called

401
00:23:46,800 --> 00:23:51,080
Speaker 1: them out is because during twelve they were the ninth

402
00:23:51,080 --> 00:23:55,520
Speaker 1: biggest spender on lobbying, not just corporations but industry as well. UM.

403
00:23:55,560 --> 00:24:00,840
Speaker 1: General Electric was the the single entity that spent the most.

404
00:24:01,119 --> 00:24:03,800
Speaker 1: Yeah this um as far as the corporation goes. Uh.

405
00:24:03,920 --> 00:24:07,000
Speaker 1: There's a great website if you want just good information

406
00:24:07,040 --> 00:24:11,720
Speaker 1: and stats called open secrets dot org. And this past year,

407
00:24:11,800 --> 00:24:15,440
Speaker 1: two thousand fourteen, the top ten spenders were the US

408
00:24:15,560 --> 00:24:18,439
Speaker 1: Chamber of Commerce, which is always number one by a

409
00:24:18,560 --> 00:24:23,280
Speaker 1: long shot because they represent a lot of businesses. The

410
00:24:23,359 --> 00:24:27,080
Speaker 1: National Association of Realtors was number two, Blue Cross Blue

411
00:24:27,080 --> 00:24:31,879
Speaker 1: Shield was number three, American Hospital Association for American Medical

412
00:24:31,920 --> 00:24:36,680
Speaker 1: Association five. Seeing a trend here, I wonder why National

413
00:24:36,680 --> 00:24:42,600
Speaker 1: Association of Broadcasters, National Cable and telecom Comcast. Again, it's

414
00:24:42,680 --> 00:24:45,000
Speaker 1: you can literally look at the years where there's the

415
00:24:45,000 --> 00:24:48,160
Speaker 1: most spending and what's going on in those industries. Uh.

416
00:24:48,200 --> 00:24:50,880
Speaker 1: And then Google and Boeing round out the top ten

417
00:24:51,840 --> 00:24:56,000
Speaker 1: at just a sixteen million each. And so and I mean,

418
00:24:56,040 --> 00:25:00,000
Speaker 1: like the amount of money spent has um I believe

419
00:25:00,480 --> 00:25:05,000
Speaker 1: tripled in the last few years, right, Yeah, I think so.

420
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Speaker 1: So so this is fairly new, but it's not new.

421
00:25:08,480 --> 00:25:12,199
Speaker 1: It's basically a return to the lobbying of the Gilded Age.

422
00:25:12,320 --> 00:25:15,600
Speaker 1: The amount of money, attention, time, questionable stuff that's been

423
00:25:15,600 --> 00:25:18,919
Speaker 1: going on is just a replay of what happened a

424
00:25:19,000 --> 00:25:22,680
Speaker 1: hundred something years ago, right, um. And one of the

425
00:25:22,760 --> 00:25:26,960
Speaker 1: reasons that we've we've it's become so rampant, it's been

426
00:25:27,040 --> 00:25:29,760
Speaker 1: ratcheted up so much. You can actually lay it at

427
00:25:29,760 --> 00:25:34,280
Speaker 1: the feet of New Gingrich. So New Gingridge. Chuckers was

428
00:25:34,359 --> 00:25:36,679
Speaker 1: Speaker of the House in the nineties when Clinton was president,

429
00:25:36,680 --> 00:25:40,840
Speaker 1: if you'll remember, and he decided that Congress was doing

430
00:25:40,920 --> 00:25:43,760
Speaker 1: too much, right oh yeah, yeah, I know. So he

431
00:25:43,960 --> 00:25:49,480
Speaker 1: cut staffs, which means that lawmakers, um that that were

432
00:25:49,520 --> 00:25:51,920
Speaker 1: able to they did have enough of his staff or

433
00:25:52,000 --> 00:25:55,400
Speaker 1: enough resources to write their own legislation could definitely could

434
00:25:55,400 --> 00:25:59,480
Speaker 1: not any longer. He also cut staff at some resources

435
00:25:59,520 --> 00:26:02,719
Speaker 1: that are dead catered to providing research for Congress, like

436
00:26:02,840 --> 00:26:06,840
Speaker 1: the Congressional Budget Office, the Congressional Research Service, all of

437
00:26:06,880 --> 00:26:10,040
Speaker 1: these things, um, that have been built up in response

438
00:26:10,119 --> 00:26:14,120
Speaker 1: to dealing with lobbyists from like the forties on. Uh,

439
00:26:14,520 --> 00:26:17,360
Speaker 1: we're cut by Gingrich and all of a sudden, our

440
00:26:17,680 --> 00:26:22,240
Speaker 1: our lawmakers are relying strictly on lobbyists for money. Yeah,

441
00:26:22,280 --> 00:26:25,359
Speaker 1: and that's there's a direct correlation. I know people, you know,

442
00:26:25,440 --> 00:26:28,520
Speaker 1: you hear about government spending. Let's cut government spending, which

443
00:26:28,520 --> 00:26:31,919
Speaker 1: in theory sounds great. Sure, let's cut government spending. But

444
00:26:32,080 --> 00:26:34,840
Speaker 1: what that means is now you don't have staff to

445
00:26:34,960 --> 00:26:38,760
Speaker 1: do unbiased research and get the facts, like you said,

446
00:26:38,960 --> 00:26:41,720
Speaker 1: You've got lobbyists to do that, right, exactly. And the

447
00:26:42,560 --> 00:26:46,199
Speaker 1: idea behind that tactic by Gingrich, if if it was

448
00:26:46,320 --> 00:26:49,720
Speaker 1: just based on I'm cutting government spending by cutting jobs

449
00:26:50,000 --> 00:26:52,320
Speaker 1: or I think government is doing too much, there's actually

450
00:26:52,359 --> 00:26:57,240
Speaker 1: a misstep. Because another UM senator from Oklahoma, his name

451
00:26:57,359 --> 00:27:00,919
Speaker 1: escapes me right now, he had the Congression Budget Office

452
00:27:01,760 --> 00:27:05,280
Speaker 1: do an annual report starting in two thousand eleven, and

453
00:27:05,320 --> 00:27:08,639
Speaker 1: they found that the Congressional Budget Office found that for

454
00:27:08,720 --> 00:27:12,720
Speaker 1: every dollar spent on the Congressional Budget Office, the Congressional

455
00:27:12,760 --> 00:27:15,879
Speaker 1: Budget Office managed to come up with ninety dollars of

456
00:27:16,000 --> 00:27:20,320
Speaker 1: recommended cuts to government waste. So for every dollar you

457
00:27:20,400 --> 00:27:23,200
Speaker 1: spent you made you saved eighty nine dollars just from

458
00:27:23,200 --> 00:27:25,680
Speaker 1: the Congressional Budget Office. So cutting their staff is the

459
00:27:25,760 --> 00:27:29,040
Speaker 1: opposite of what you want to do here against like bloated,

460
00:27:29,080 --> 00:27:34,000
Speaker 1: wasteful government. It's pretty interesting. It's specifically as interesting as

461
00:27:34,040 --> 00:27:39,119
Speaker 1: far as New Gingrich goes to because him cutting Congress's

462
00:27:39,119 --> 00:27:43,520
Speaker 1: ability to not rely on lobbyists really left a sour

463
00:27:43,560 --> 00:27:45,440
Speaker 1: taste in a lot of people's mouths during the two

464
00:27:45,440 --> 00:27:49,480
Speaker 1: thousand twelve primaries because he was like, he refused to

465
00:27:49,520 --> 00:27:52,200
Speaker 1: admit that he was a lobbyist. Well, yeah, and he's

466
00:27:52,240 --> 00:27:54,879
Speaker 1: he's not registered as a lobbyist. What he has is

467
00:27:54,920 --> 00:27:57,080
Speaker 1: a well, one of the things he does, he has

468
00:27:57,080 --> 00:28:00,399
Speaker 1: a healthcare consulting firm where you can pay two hundred

469
00:28:00,400 --> 00:28:04,160
Speaker 1: thousand dollars to become a member, quote unquote, which you're

470
00:28:04,160 --> 00:28:06,480
Speaker 1: not a client, you're a member. It's a membership group.

471
00:28:07,160 --> 00:28:10,120
Speaker 1: So it's and he's not the only one, I mean,

472
00:28:10,160 --> 00:28:12,439
Speaker 1: I think they have in here. They call it the

473
00:28:12,480 --> 00:28:16,119
Speaker 1: revolving door. Basically, when you leave your position as a

474
00:28:16,160 --> 00:28:19,679
Speaker 1: congress person or a senator, you go directly to the lobby. Uh.

475
00:28:19,800 --> 00:28:22,159
Speaker 1: The New York Times says they're more than four hundred

476
00:28:22,200 --> 00:28:25,919
Speaker 1: former legislators who worked as lobbyists in the past decade.

477
00:28:26,000 --> 00:28:28,720
Speaker 1: It's just like, let me go and make some real

478
00:28:28,760 --> 00:28:31,920
Speaker 1: money now. Not just legislators either, like them there was

479
00:28:32,080 --> 00:28:36,400
Speaker 1: very famously a guy who was running the the Pentagon,

480
00:28:36,520 --> 00:28:39,840
Speaker 1: I believe ed Aldridge, and he was a longtime critic

481
00:28:39,840 --> 00:28:42,080
Speaker 1: of Boeing, and then Bowing hired him and on his

482
00:28:42,200 --> 00:28:45,360
Speaker 1: way out he approved a three billion dollar contract to Boeing.

483
00:28:46,320 --> 00:28:50,440
Speaker 1: That's the revolving door at work. There's a Massachusetts representative

484
00:28:50,520 --> 00:28:54,080
Speaker 1: named William Dela Hunt and um, he took a job

485
00:28:54,360 --> 00:28:57,800
Speaker 1: lobbying for a wind project that he had just earmarked

486
00:28:57,800 --> 00:29:00,560
Speaker 1: a bunch of money for right before he left. Yeah,

487
00:29:00,600 --> 00:29:03,160
Speaker 1: so I mean this revolving door. People say like, well,

488
00:29:03,240 --> 00:29:05,320
Speaker 1: let's just shut the revolving door, and it is a

489
00:29:05,560 --> 00:29:08,560
Speaker 1: it's a proposal. But at the same time, if you

490
00:29:08,640 --> 00:29:11,719
Speaker 1: do that, then then your anti job and you can't

491
00:29:11,720 --> 00:29:15,360
Speaker 1: you can't even appear anti jobs. So there's other solutions

492
00:29:15,360 --> 00:29:18,440
Speaker 1: that I think are better for dealing with the lobby

493
00:29:18,480 --> 00:29:20,880
Speaker 1: and crisis. I guess you could call it. Yeah, and

494
00:29:21,000 --> 00:29:23,520
Speaker 1: uh well we'll get to that later. That great article

495
00:29:23,520 --> 00:29:26,160
Speaker 1: you sent, Um, you know what show actually does a

496
00:29:26,200 --> 00:29:29,840
Speaker 1: really great job realistically with this is a veep. I

497
00:29:29,880 --> 00:29:32,440
Speaker 1: haven't seen a second of that. It's fantastic, man, I

498
00:29:32,440 --> 00:29:35,920
Speaker 1: mean it really shows you. For Best Actress, Yeah, she

499
00:29:36,040 --> 00:29:38,480
Speaker 1: won and Veep one, and I think the writing team

500
00:29:38,520 --> 00:29:40,640
Speaker 1: one good. I think it's the best written show on

501
00:29:40,680 --> 00:29:43,800
Speaker 1: TV right now, but or the best written comedy. Oh

502
00:29:43,840 --> 00:29:48,080
Speaker 1: have you seen Narcos yet? No, you canna check that out, Okay,

503
00:29:48,120 --> 00:29:50,520
Speaker 1: But Veep is really even though it's a comedy, really

504
00:29:50,560 --> 00:29:53,680
Speaker 1: like shows that everything in d C is just about

505
00:29:54,200 --> 00:29:57,200
Speaker 1: deals being made, like will you do this for me?

506
00:29:57,560 --> 00:29:59,720
Speaker 1: And I'll give you support on this bill and they're

507
00:29:59,760 --> 00:30:01,880
Speaker 1: pulling that bill and what did that lobby say because

508
00:30:02,040 --> 00:30:04,440
Speaker 1: they were my friend and it's all it's all just

509
00:30:04,720 --> 00:30:08,840
Speaker 1: it's such an insider's game. It's staggering. And and that's

510
00:30:08,840 --> 00:30:13,680
Speaker 1: a comedy written by uh English people, which is yeah,

511
00:30:13,720 --> 00:30:16,920
Speaker 1: the producers got there and they're all like from from

512
00:30:16,920 --> 00:30:20,760
Speaker 1: England and that's I don't know, for some reason, that's

513
00:30:20,840 --> 00:30:23,640
Speaker 1: so interesting. And they even in their Emmy speech said,

514
00:30:24,120 --> 00:30:25,320
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of funny to be able to

515
00:30:25,360 --> 00:30:28,160
Speaker 1: make fun of the American political system being English folks.

516
00:30:28,240 --> 00:30:31,840
Speaker 1: But thank you for this award for that. Uh all right,

517
00:30:31,880 --> 00:30:33,720
Speaker 1: So let's talk a little bit about we keep saying

518
00:30:33,760 --> 00:30:38,800
Speaker 1: registered lobbyists. Since eighteen seventy six, Congress is required that

519
00:30:38,880 --> 00:30:43,400
Speaker 1: all professional lobbyist register with the Office of the Clerk

520
00:30:43,440 --> 00:30:47,280
Speaker 1: of the House and UH since nineteen with the Lobbying

521
00:30:47,720 --> 00:30:51,360
Speaker 1: Disclosure Act in two thousand seven Honest Leadership and Open

522
00:30:51,480 --> 00:30:56,200
Speaker 1: Government Act of two thousand seven UH, they narrowly defined

523
00:30:56,240 --> 00:30:59,440
Speaker 1: a lobbyist as someone who has won paid by client

524
00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:04,600
Speaker 1: to services include more than one lobbying contact and three

525
00:31:04,600 --> 00:31:08,320
Speaker 1: whose lobbying activities constitute or more of their time on

526
00:31:08,360 --> 00:31:11,400
Speaker 1: behalf of that client during any three month period. So

527
00:31:11,440 --> 00:31:14,800
Speaker 1: that's actually it seems broad. That's actually you're a really

528
00:31:14,960 --> 00:31:18,479
Speaker 1: narrow definition of a lobbyist. Yeah, and it's so narrow,

529
00:31:18,600 --> 00:31:21,120
Speaker 1: as it turns out that it's really easy to skirt

530
00:31:21,280 --> 00:31:25,280
Speaker 1: those rules and not register because there are many ways

531
00:31:25,280 --> 00:31:27,560
Speaker 1: you can say you can really budget your time and

532
00:31:27,600 --> 00:31:31,800
Speaker 1: say no, I worked twenty point nine in this three

533
00:31:31,840 --> 00:31:35,360
Speaker 1: month period for this firm, or I have so many

534
00:31:35,400 --> 00:31:38,040
Speaker 1: people I work for, I only spend about ten fift

535
00:31:38,480 --> 00:31:40,920
Speaker 1: of my time, right. Or if you're on any one

536
00:31:41,320 --> 00:31:43,560
Speaker 1: group right, Or if you're like new g Rich, you're

537
00:31:43,600 --> 00:31:46,160
Speaker 1: you're not working for a client, says client. I got members,

538
00:31:46,440 --> 00:31:49,200
Speaker 1: so I'm doing all this, but it's for members, not clients.

539
00:31:49,640 --> 00:31:53,520
Speaker 1: Or if it's educational, it's not called libbing. So hey,

540
00:31:53,600 --> 00:31:56,480
Speaker 1: let me just hire this former senator, pay him a

541
00:31:56,520 --> 00:31:58,920
Speaker 1: lot of money to go around and give speeches on

542
00:31:59,120 --> 00:32:04,320
Speaker 1: education that are really trying to generate interest in legislation

543
00:32:04,560 --> 00:32:08,760
Speaker 1: or to educate the government on why um, the thirty

544
00:32:08,840 --> 00:32:11,760
Speaker 1: seven and a half billion dollars in fossil fuel subsidies

545
00:32:11,760 --> 00:32:13,760
Speaker 1: that shelled out in two thousand fourteen is a good

546
00:32:13,760 --> 00:32:17,520
Speaker 1: thing to redo and then double. But that's just education,

547
00:32:17,600 --> 00:32:19,440
Speaker 1: that's not lobby So those are just some of the

548
00:32:19,440 --> 00:32:23,920
Speaker 1: ways you can skirt officially registering as a lobbyists. And actually, Chuck,

549
00:32:23,960 --> 00:32:25,680
Speaker 1: so you said that that was from the two thousand

550
00:32:25,760 --> 00:32:29,040
Speaker 1: seven act. Total it was and two thousand seven, right,

551
00:32:29,360 --> 00:32:32,160
Speaker 1: two different acts. And in two thousand seven when they

552
00:32:32,200 --> 00:32:35,080
Speaker 1: added I guess they added that third one about the

553
00:32:35,120 --> 00:32:40,280
Speaker 1: twenty percent the time measure, like three thousand lobbyists de

554
00:32:40,480 --> 00:32:45,320
Speaker 1: registered loophole. Oh really, all I have to do is

555
00:32:45,360 --> 00:32:47,040
Speaker 1: account for my time in this way and all the

556
00:32:47,120 --> 00:32:50,120
Speaker 1: rules don't apply to me. It's pretty amazing. And so

557
00:32:50,240 --> 00:32:54,080
Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, Um, the American Bar Association said,

558
00:32:54,240 --> 00:32:56,760
Speaker 1: if you just just get rid of that third one

559
00:32:56,840 --> 00:33:00,000
Speaker 1: the time thing, that would help a lot. Yeah, And actually,

560
00:33:00,080 --> 00:33:04,320
Speaker 1: when Congress first started to deal with UM, lobbying. Uh. Well,

561
00:33:04,320 --> 00:33:06,240
Speaker 1: I shouldn't say first because it was the nineteenth century.

562
00:33:06,280 --> 00:33:10,400
Speaker 1: But in nine five or six, when they passed an

563
00:33:10,400 --> 00:33:15,640
Speaker 1: act about lobbying rules, Um, they said that a lobbyist

564
00:33:16,360 --> 00:33:18,880
Speaker 1: someone who had to register it as a lobbyist, was

565
00:33:18,880 --> 00:33:22,240
Speaker 1: anyone who aids in the passage or defeat of legislation.

566
00:33:22,480 --> 00:33:25,480
Speaker 1: That's it. So, I mean, I'm sure there's loopholes in

567
00:33:25,520 --> 00:33:27,480
Speaker 1: there and ways around that too, but it was much

568
00:33:27,680 --> 00:33:31,440
Speaker 1: much more vague, which in the fact would sound it's counterintuitive,

569
00:33:31,440 --> 00:33:33,640
Speaker 1: but that's actually better, right to be more vague in

570
00:33:33,680 --> 00:33:37,000
Speaker 1: the description because you can't skirt it's easy. So let's

571
00:33:37,080 --> 00:33:38,960
Speaker 1: let's take a break and then we'll talk about, um,

572
00:33:39,120 --> 00:33:42,160
Speaker 1: all of the stuff that lobbyists do, including some good

573
00:33:42,200 --> 00:34:07,520
Speaker 1: stuff too. All right, Uh, lobbyists who are lobbyists? What

574
00:34:07,520 --> 00:34:11,200
Speaker 1: do they do? They are full time Uh, as they

575
00:34:11,280 --> 00:34:14,360
Speaker 1: puts it, full time advocates for their clients. It's a

576
00:34:14,360 --> 00:34:17,600
Speaker 1: good way to put it. There's no job description you're

577
00:34:17,600 --> 00:34:19,799
Speaker 1: gonna get, but you better be a people person. You

578
00:34:19,840 --> 00:34:23,160
Speaker 1: better have great you better have a stuffed rolodex, you

579
00:34:23,280 --> 00:34:25,839
Speaker 1: better you better be good at networking, be super good

580
00:34:25,880 --> 00:34:29,200
Speaker 1: at networking. Uh, smooth talker Yeah, you should throw a

581
00:34:29,239 --> 00:34:33,279
Speaker 1: good party, be good at fundraising. Yeah. Um, and like

582
00:34:33,320 --> 00:34:35,759
Speaker 1: we said, you got to know a lot of good people.

583
00:34:35,800 --> 00:34:40,040
Speaker 1: You've gotta be a great communicator and persuasive. One might

584
00:34:40,040 --> 00:34:44,320
Speaker 1: say slick, slick. I think it is probably right. But um,

585
00:34:44,400 --> 00:34:47,160
Speaker 1: that and that I imagine that those are good qualities

586
00:34:47,160 --> 00:34:48,920
Speaker 1: that haven't just about any But I also have the

587
00:34:48,920 --> 00:34:52,400
Speaker 1: impression that there are lobbyists who are just like just

588
00:34:52,480 --> 00:34:55,440
Speaker 1: strictly grinding out research and stuff like that. Yeah. I

589
00:34:55,480 --> 00:34:58,040
Speaker 1: think there's different types of lobbyists. Some are probably like

590
00:34:58,320 --> 00:35:01,000
Speaker 1: there's the glad handers, yeah, like the person maybe, and

591
00:35:01,000 --> 00:35:04,200
Speaker 1: then there's like walks, people who are literally like technical

592
00:35:04,560 --> 00:35:08,160
Speaker 1: policy experts on a certain topic. They know the ins

593
00:35:08,200 --> 00:35:09,960
Speaker 1: and outs, they know both sides of it, they know

594
00:35:10,280 --> 00:35:13,960
Speaker 1: what senators care about it, Um, they know what congress

595
00:35:14,000 --> 00:35:17,360
Speaker 1: people could be persuaded. Maybe like they know everything about

596
00:35:17,640 --> 00:35:21,160
Speaker 1: this particular issue. Yeah, and like up to the minute. Uh,

597
00:35:21,280 --> 00:35:23,719
Speaker 1: they have to be really up on the very very

598
00:35:23,800 --> 00:35:28,800
Speaker 1: latest policies and laws. I mean they have to be experts,

599
00:35:28,840 --> 00:35:31,960
Speaker 1: like you said, right, like inside and out because they

600
00:35:32,000 --> 00:35:35,080
Speaker 1: get paid a ton of money to do that. And

601
00:35:35,120 --> 00:35:38,880
Speaker 1: there's typically three kinds of lobbying that people undertake. Again,

602
00:35:38,880 --> 00:35:42,799
Speaker 1: whether it's the Girl Scouts or Green Peace or UM,

603
00:35:42,920 --> 00:35:47,520
Speaker 1: the Chamber of Commerce or whoever. Um, there's direct lobbying,

604
00:35:48,080 --> 00:35:51,279
Speaker 1: indirect lobbying, and the grassroots lobbying. And they probably any

605
00:35:51,320 --> 00:35:54,919
Speaker 1: lobbying group takes part in all a combination of all these. Yeah.

606
00:35:54,960 --> 00:35:57,239
Speaker 1: Direct lobbying is when you're when you can get a

607
00:35:57,280 --> 00:36:00,359
Speaker 1: meeting with the congress person or senator or their aids. Yeah,

608
00:36:00,360 --> 00:36:05,280
Speaker 1: and you sit down with their staff for them and say, uh,

609
00:36:05,480 --> 00:36:07,440
Speaker 1: I'm experienced clearly because I'm in the room with you,

610
00:36:07,480 --> 00:36:10,680
Speaker 1: and here's here's what we think is a good piece

611
00:36:10,680 --> 00:36:14,120
Speaker 1: of legislation. Right, it's good for the country. Wink wink. Yeah.

612
00:36:14,800 --> 00:36:19,319
Speaker 1: So that's direct lobbying. Uh. Indirect is if you, um, well,

613
00:36:19,320 --> 00:36:21,560
Speaker 1: what's the difference between indirect and social aren't they kind

614
00:36:21,560 --> 00:36:23,880
Speaker 1: of the same. Yeah, it's the same, all right. So

615
00:36:23,920 --> 00:36:27,719
Speaker 1: that's like we said the Sam Ward we would throw

616
00:36:27,800 --> 00:36:31,560
Speaker 1: parties the King of lobby. Yeah, he invented the lobby

617
00:36:31,760 --> 00:36:34,160
Speaker 1: social lobbying and that's still true today. You through a

618
00:36:34,160 --> 00:36:38,360
Speaker 1: big swanky d C. Cocktail hour and get people in

619
00:36:38,400 --> 00:36:42,520
Speaker 1: the same room, just connecting folks. That's indirect lobby. Goosen

620
00:36:42,600 --> 00:36:46,000
Speaker 1: them up with a little uh scotch maybe, and all

621
00:36:46,080 --> 00:36:47,960
Speaker 1: of a sudden you're like, you just sit back and

622
00:36:47,960 --> 00:36:50,640
Speaker 1: you're like, yeah, this is working. Look at them talking

623
00:36:50,640 --> 00:36:54,360
Speaker 1: to each other. I love myself. And then there's grassroots lobbying,

624
00:36:54,360 --> 00:36:56,839
Speaker 1: which is kind of misleading actually because it can be

625
00:36:56,920 --> 00:37:03,959
Speaker 1: employed by uh, deep deeply trenched, deep pocketed interests. But

626
00:37:04,120 --> 00:37:07,640
Speaker 1: you know, it still appears grassroots and folksy things like

627
00:37:07,800 --> 00:37:11,560
Speaker 1: UM paying somebody who's an expert in a field or

628
00:37:12,200 --> 00:37:16,880
Speaker 1: UM a recognized figure maybe a former UM congress person

629
00:37:16,960 --> 00:37:19,600
Speaker 1: or whatever to write an op ed. Yeah, And I

630
00:37:19,640 --> 00:37:24,080
Speaker 1: mean name recognition counts for just about anything, so even

631
00:37:24,120 --> 00:37:27,960
Speaker 1: op eds. And if if somebody's saying, if a former

632
00:37:28,000 --> 00:37:31,040
Speaker 1: Treasury secretary is like, this is a really bad idea,

633
00:37:31,320 --> 00:37:36,799
Speaker 1: we shouldn't pass this legislation, that's going to inform voters minds. Yeah,

634
00:37:36,840 --> 00:37:40,640
Speaker 1: I think it also is a huge message to the

635
00:37:40,719 --> 00:37:44,120
Speaker 1: legislators who are also reading it that like Washington Post

636
00:37:44,160 --> 00:37:46,920
Speaker 1: published this, so a lot of people just read you

637
00:37:46,960 --> 00:37:48,960
Speaker 1: may want to listen to what I just said. Yeah,

638
00:37:49,080 --> 00:37:52,080
Speaker 1: or grassroots in the purest sense of the word. In

639
00:37:52,120 --> 00:37:55,040
Speaker 1: the more traditional sense is UH could be a small

640
00:37:55,040 --> 00:37:58,680
Speaker 1: little ngo that's all they can afford his grassroots campaigns,

641
00:37:59,320 --> 00:38:03,840
Speaker 1: and sadly it's it's uh the dog that barks the

642
00:38:03,840 --> 00:38:05,960
Speaker 1: loudest is the one that's going to get the most attention.

643
00:38:06,520 --> 00:38:10,080
Speaker 1: And you're barking the loudest if you have the resources too,

644
00:38:10,760 --> 00:38:12,560
Speaker 1: I guess, get a bunch of dogs barking at once.

645
00:38:12,680 --> 00:38:16,000
Speaker 1: Which is a really good point, Chuck, because and this

646
00:38:16,000 --> 00:38:19,200
Speaker 1: this article goes to great pains to make it clear

647
00:38:19,360 --> 00:38:23,600
Speaker 1: that you know, not all lobbying is bad, that lobbying

648
00:38:23,600 --> 00:38:27,200
Speaker 1: in and of itself isn't necessarily bad, um, And that

649
00:38:27,920 --> 00:38:33,080
Speaker 1: there are plenty of public interest groups that are dedicated

650
00:38:33,120 --> 00:38:35,839
Speaker 1: to serving the common good that engage in lobbying. So

651
00:38:35,920 --> 00:38:38,400
Speaker 1: it shouldn't be outlawed, it shouldn't be cut off. We

652
00:38:38,400 --> 00:38:41,080
Speaker 1: should figure out how to fix it. Um. The thing

653
00:38:41,239 --> 00:38:44,480
Speaker 1: is is they found that for every dollar that a

654
00:38:44,640 --> 00:38:51,319
Speaker 1: union and public interest group combined spends, corporations or big

655
00:38:51,360 --> 00:38:56,480
Speaker 1: business spent thirty four dollars. Of the top one spenders

656
00:38:56,480 --> 00:39:00,799
Speaker 1: were all corporate or corporate interests. Um. So it's the

657
00:39:00,800 --> 00:39:03,799
Speaker 1: field is very much skewed towards whoever has the most

658
00:39:03,800 --> 00:39:07,080
Speaker 1: money or whoever is willing to spend the most. Uh.

659
00:39:07,200 --> 00:39:10,600
Speaker 1: So to be two registers a lobbyists, which was required,

660
00:39:10,640 --> 00:39:13,520
Speaker 1: like I said, since eighteen seventy six, and then a

661
00:39:13,560 --> 00:39:16,279
Speaker 1: few years after that they required that members of the

662
00:39:16,320 --> 00:39:20,480
Speaker 1: press register because with the House and Senate because they

663
00:39:20,520 --> 00:39:24,480
Speaker 1: were had lobbyists posing as journalists, so they had to

664
00:39:24,520 --> 00:39:26,520
Speaker 1: take care of that pretty early on. But if you

665
00:39:26,560 --> 00:39:29,239
Speaker 1: are registered, uh, there are some things that you have

666
00:39:29,360 --> 00:39:33,439
Speaker 1: to do according to the law. Um. Well, first of all,

667
00:39:33,680 --> 00:39:37,200
Speaker 1: you can't give gifts. Blatantly give gifts. Yeah, that's one

668
00:39:37,200 --> 00:39:39,360
Speaker 1: of the things that got Abram often trouble. All sorts

669
00:39:39,360 --> 00:39:41,240
Speaker 1: of ways around this, of course, but you can't blatantly

670
00:39:41,239 --> 00:39:44,479
Speaker 1: give gifts. You have to register. You have to file

671
00:39:44,600 --> 00:39:49,320
Speaker 1: quarterly reports that detail the contacts you've made with elected officials.

672
00:39:49,719 --> 00:39:52,879
Speaker 1: You have to disclose how much money you were paid. Uh.

673
00:39:53,080 --> 00:39:56,880
Speaker 1: You have to file semi annual reports at list contributions

674
00:39:57,160 --> 00:40:00,960
Speaker 1: UH made to political campaigns. See that. I have a

675
00:40:01,040 --> 00:40:03,640
Speaker 1: question about that because from what I understand, if on

676
00:40:03,719 --> 00:40:06,560
Speaker 1: the federal level, if you're a registered lobbyists, you cannot

677
00:40:06,640 --> 00:40:10,160
Speaker 1: contribute to a political campaign. Yeah. Maybe it's has to

678
00:40:10,200 --> 00:40:13,839
Speaker 1: do with like these three thousand dollar plate dinners or something.

679
00:40:13,880 --> 00:40:16,480
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, I wasn't sure about that either. Actually,

680
00:40:17,080 --> 00:40:21,040
Speaker 1: but you mentioned the American Bar Association. They a lot

681
00:40:21,239 --> 00:40:26,840
Speaker 1: of attorneys are lobbyists, um off and on during their career.

682
00:40:26,960 --> 00:40:30,359
Speaker 1: My uncle was actually a lobbyist, Is that right? Yeah, Congressman,

683
00:40:31,040 --> 00:40:35,280
Speaker 1: my congressman uncle. Really he went through the revolving door. Huh. Yeah,

684
00:40:35,640 --> 00:40:37,839
Speaker 1: I don't know much about it, but um, oh man,

685
00:40:38,040 --> 00:40:40,919
Speaker 1: you gotta ask him, Yeah, I should. And I will

686
00:40:40,920 --> 00:40:42,719
Speaker 1: say this, even though we were not on the same

687
00:40:42,760 --> 00:40:45,239
Speaker 1: side of the political spectrum, which I won't even say

688
00:40:45,239 --> 00:40:50,440
Speaker 1: who's who. He's a Democrat, but he's a good dude

689
00:40:50,719 --> 00:40:54,160
Speaker 1: and an honest person. So even though we don't agree

690
00:40:54,160 --> 00:40:57,640
Speaker 1: on things, I always felt like he, you know, he's

691
00:40:57,680 --> 00:40:59,600
Speaker 1: not taking kickbacks. He's not one of those guys. And

692
00:40:59,640 --> 00:41:02,560
Speaker 1: I really believe that he's a man pure of heart

693
00:41:02,719 --> 00:41:06,600
Speaker 1: and so so, in no way disparaging your uncle for

694
00:41:06,680 --> 00:41:09,040
Speaker 1: going through the revolving door. One of the problems with

695
00:41:09,080 --> 00:41:12,040
Speaker 1: that revolving door is not just that it causes this

696
00:41:12,160 --> 00:41:16,239
Speaker 1: brain drain from um Capitol Hill to the lobbying companies

697
00:41:16,560 --> 00:41:20,520
Speaker 1: or the law law firms, but um, it also makes

698
00:41:21,320 --> 00:41:25,000
Speaker 1: Congress not really interested in passing any kind of lobbying reform.

699
00:41:25,120 --> 00:41:28,440
Speaker 1: Or revolving door reform because pretty soon their term is

700
00:41:28,480 --> 00:41:31,160
Speaker 1: going to be up and they can go get that job. Exactly. Yeah,

701
00:41:31,160 --> 00:41:33,719
Speaker 1: because you don't as a public servant, I mean, you

702
00:41:33,719 --> 00:41:35,880
Speaker 1: don't make a lot of money. No, you don't. And

703
00:41:36,040 --> 00:41:38,680
Speaker 1: especially well we'll get to this in a second, but

704
00:41:38,880 --> 00:41:42,160
Speaker 1: finishing on the A B A UM, the American Bar

705
00:41:42,200 --> 00:41:45,880
Speaker 1: Association has a real interest in trying to keep lobbying

706
00:41:47,040 --> 00:41:49,120
Speaker 1: as above board as possible because a lot of them

707
00:41:49,120 --> 00:41:51,400
Speaker 1: want to be lobbyist and they don't want to be tarnished,

708
00:41:51,440 --> 00:41:54,880
Speaker 1: and so, like you said earlier, they think the biggest

709
00:41:54,960 --> 00:41:58,840
Speaker 1: thing you can do is to separate and have really

710
00:41:59,400 --> 00:42:03,239
Speaker 1: strict line straw between fundraising and lobbying. They think that's

711
00:42:03,280 --> 00:42:06,800
Speaker 1: where it's the most corrupt. So get rid of the time,

712
00:42:07,120 --> 00:42:11,840
Speaker 1: the time requirement of your time to be a registered lobbyist,

713
00:42:12,480 --> 00:42:18,239
Speaker 1: and just separate fundraising from from UM lobbying. Yeah. I

714
00:42:18,280 --> 00:42:20,320
Speaker 1: get the idea that that's where most of the hinky

715
00:42:20,320 --> 00:42:23,200
Speaker 1: stuff is going on. So the thing is like that

716
00:42:23,280 --> 00:42:25,560
Speaker 1: makes sense, but it's also kind of like trying to

717
00:42:25,600 --> 00:42:28,440
Speaker 1: remove a hornet's nest by picking the hornets out one

718
00:42:28,480 --> 00:42:32,520
Speaker 1: by one. Not the best idea, UM, And to smash

719
00:42:32,560 --> 00:42:35,160
Speaker 1: it and set it on fire pretty much and p

720
00:42:35,360 --> 00:42:37,759
Speaker 1: on the ashes. Actually, I believe you should leave a

721
00:42:37,760 --> 00:42:40,920
Speaker 1: hornet's nest. You should never destroy hornet's nest. So, uh,

722
00:42:41,760 --> 00:42:47,600
Speaker 1: I know, apex predators and all um So the the

723
00:42:47,600 --> 00:42:51,080
Speaker 1: the other idea to just shut the revolving door or

724
00:42:51,200 --> 00:42:54,360
Speaker 1: to just outlaw lobbying all together. Again, not only is

725
00:42:54,360 --> 00:42:57,040
Speaker 1: that a bad idea, especially if you just did it

726
00:42:57,320 --> 00:42:59,680
Speaker 1: wholesale out of the gate. You can't do that, but

727
00:42:59,800 --> 00:43:03,520
Speaker 1: it's also unconstitutional. Right. So we read this really great

728
00:43:03,600 --> 00:43:07,000
Speaker 1: article um Man that was good in Washington Monthly. So

729
00:43:07,040 --> 00:43:10,760
Speaker 1: who wrote this thing, Lee Droftman or Drutman, probably Druttman

730
00:43:10,880 --> 00:43:13,520
Speaker 1: and Steven tell Us. They wrote it in the Washington Monthly.

731
00:43:13,600 --> 00:43:16,239
Speaker 1: Is called a New Agenda for Political Reform. It was

732
00:43:16,280 --> 00:43:20,759
Speaker 1: a great article, Lenky, but it just and it's made

733
00:43:20,840 --> 00:43:23,360
Speaker 1: really good sense to me. Yeah, and it's not too wonky.

734
00:43:23,480 --> 00:43:25,319
Speaker 1: But I mean, these guys clearly know what they're talking

735
00:43:25,360 --> 00:43:28,200
Speaker 1: about people, the long and short of it, and what

736
00:43:28,280 --> 00:43:31,280
Speaker 1: they think is the problem is what we touched on earlier,

737
00:43:31,320 --> 00:43:37,200
Speaker 1: which is staffing of congressional offices has been cut and

738
00:43:37,239 --> 00:43:40,759
Speaker 1: slash so much and there's so much more information now

739
00:43:41,440 --> 00:43:44,360
Speaker 1: to ingest than there used to be. They just can't

740
00:43:44,400 --> 00:43:46,239
Speaker 1: do it. There are not the resources to do it.

741
00:43:46,360 --> 00:43:49,120
Speaker 1: So we have no choice but to turn to lobbyists

742
00:43:49,120 --> 00:43:52,520
Speaker 1: to act as the experts and to write legislation. So

743
00:43:53,120 --> 00:43:55,720
Speaker 1: they propose and we have some stats in here actually

744
00:43:56,680 --> 00:43:59,920
Speaker 1: that I thought were pretty striking. In the eighties, around

745
00:44:00,040 --> 00:44:05,320
Speaker 1: nineteen is when they started cutting everything the Government Accountability

746
00:44:05,360 --> 00:44:08,799
Speaker 1: Office in the Congressional Research Services. What they do is

747
00:44:08,800 --> 00:44:13,719
Speaker 1: they provide nonpartisan policy and program analysis to lawmakers. Right.

748
00:44:13,840 --> 00:44:18,040
Speaker 1: There are fewer now than in nineteen seventy nine, and

749
00:44:18,120 --> 00:44:21,680
Speaker 1: those are the very experts that were dedicated to serving

750
00:44:21,719 --> 00:44:24,440
Speaker 1: Congress in a nonpartisan way so that they had all

751
00:44:24,480 --> 00:44:28,719
Speaker 1: the information they needed to create legislation to actually make

752
00:44:28,760 --> 00:44:33,279
Speaker 1: the government operate. Fewer than the nineteen seventies. Yeah, so

753
00:44:33,400 --> 00:44:36,359
Speaker 1: gone gone. Starting in the eighties and then again uh

754
00:44:36,400 --> 00:44:40,400
Speaker 1: in the mid nineties, Gingrich cut congressional staff. Yeah. And

755
00:44:40,400 --> 00:44:42,480
Speaker 1: while this is going on, it's a two way street.

756
00:44:42,600 --> 00:44:47,759
Speaker 1: Lobbying is increasing by It's staggering how much lobbying has

757
00:44:47,960 --> 00:44:51,520
Speaker 1: increased in money and just human power. And then one

758
00:44:51,520 --> 00:44:55,120
Speaker 1: of the things about lobbying is that lobbying begets lobbying.

759
00:44:55,280 --> 00:44:59,279
Speaker 1: The more a lobbyist can get legislation pushed through. The

760
00:44:59,400 --> 00:45:04,440
Speaker 1: larger the federal register grows, the less ability any given

761
00:45:04,440 --> 00:45:08,839
Speaker 1: congress person has to read and ingest and understand federal law.

762
00:45:09,480 --> 00:45:13,040
Speaker 1: So the more they need lobbyists who do understand it. Yeah,

763
00:45:13,120 --> 00:45:15,400
Speaker 1: and so what you get is what we talked about

764
00:45:15,480 --> 00:45:19,800
Speaker 1: the revolving door. Well, actually that's politicians themselves going to

765
00:45:19,880 --> 00:45:22,479
Speaker 1: lobby Well, but there's a brain drink because their aids

766
00:45:22,480 --> 00:45:24,799
Speaker 1: are being sucked away by the K Street as well.

767
00:45:24,840 --> 00:45:28,880
Speaker 1: There's another cycle where there's no incentive to be a

768
00:45:28,880 --> 00:45:31,680
Speaker 1: congressional staffer for very long because you're not going to

769
00:45:31,760 --> 00:45:33,800
Speaker 1: make much money. I think they said the top ninety

770
00:45:33,960 --> 00:45:39,319
Speaker 1: percentile of a congressional staff makes hundred thousand dollars a year.

771
00:45:39,520 --> 00:45:42,880
Speaker 1: That's the top nine percentile. It sounds like six figures.

772
00:45:42,880 --> 00:45:45,120
Speaker 1: That's good. DC is not cheap, no, and take out

773
00:45:45,120 --> 00:45:47,920
Speaker 1: taxes and everything. That the median income was fifty grand,

774
00:45:48,400 --> 00:45:51,480
Speaker 1: so you're making what like thirty five after taxes. You

775
00:45:51,480 --> 00:45:53,799
Speaker 1: can't live on thirty five dollars in d C. And

776
00:45:53,840 --> 00:45:57,360
Speaker 1: they found that the median income for a lobbyist in Washington,

777
00:45:57,440 --> 00:46:01,160
Speaker 1: d C median is three hundred thousand and that's pretty attractive,

778
00:46:01,280 --> 00:46:02,960
Speaker 1: especially if you're in your twenties and all of a

779
00:46:03,000 --> 00:46:06,040
Speaker 1: sudden can go double or triple your income, like right

780
00:46:06,040 --> 00:46:08,799
Speaker 1: out of the gate. It's the career path, like it's

781
00:46:08,840 --> 00:46:10,920
Speaker 1: laid out there for everyone. Here's what you do. Go

782
00:46:11,040 --> 00:46:13,719
Speaker 1: working on the staff for a little while, make contacts,

783
00:46:13,760 --> 00:46:15,640
Speaker 1: which is invaluable. That's why you do it for not

784
00:46:15,719 --> 00:46:17,640
Speaker 1: a whole lot of money, right, and then boom you

785
00:46:17,640 --> 00:46:20,520
Speaker 1: can get rich, make a lot of money as a lobbyist.

786
00:46:20,640 --> 00:46:24,440
Speaker 1: So Drugman and tell us Um suggests first and foremost

787
00:46:24,480 --> 00:46:28,279
Speaker 1: that the solution to the lobbying conundrum that we have

788
00:46:28,360 --> 00:46:33,680
Speaker 1: now is basically equipped Congress with the UM information, research

789
00:46:33,760 --> 00:46:37,759
Speaker 1: and policy experts that they need and that they can

790
00:46:37,760 --> 00:46:39,880
Speaker 1: get the stuff that they're currently getting from lobbyists. And

791
00:46:39,880 --> 00:46:43,800
Speaker 1: the way you do that start is just increased salaries.

792
00:46:44,400 --> 00:46:46,920
Speaker 1: And they make a really good point that you don't

793
00:46:46,960 --> 00:46:51,520
Speaker 1: have to necessarily increase the salaries to to be completely

794
00:46:51,560 --> 00:46:55,279
Speaker 1: on par with what UM case streets offering, because k

795
00:46:55,360 --> 00:46:57,279
Speaker 1: Street would probably just try to start to outspend the

796
00:46:57,360 --> 00:46:59,960
Speaker 1: just raise salaries UM. But if you can do it's

797
00:47:00,000 --> 00:47:02,160
Speaker 1: so that a person could make a pretty decent living

798
00:47:02,800 --> 00:47:07,560
Speaker 1: um they would possibly choose congressional work over K Street,

799
00:47:07,840 --> 00:47:11,239
Speaker 1: because with congressional work, they're in there, they're like part

800
00:47:11,320 --> 00:47:15,480
Speaker 1: of this machine that's really making decisions and policies and

801
00:47:15,600 --> 00:47:18,600
Speaker 1: laws that are affecting the country, rather than working for

802
00:47:18,800 --> 00:47:22,279
Speaker 1: a law firm that's trying to get some some legislation

803
00:47:22,360 --> 00:47:25,920
Speaker 1: pass that will benefit this one corporate client. So so

804
00:47:25,960 --> 00:47:29,479
Speaker 1: if you just factor in idealism along with a really

805
00:47:29,480 --> 00:47:32,399
Speaker 1: good salary, these guys say you could attract the right

806
00:47:32,400 --> 00:47:36,239
Speaker 1: talent that you need. So their recommendation simply I mean

807
00:47:36,280 --> 00:47:39,720
Speaker 1: it's multi fold, but they say double committee staff, triple

808
00:47:39,760 --> 00:47:42,600
Speaker 1: the money that they make, and you might be stepping

809
00:47:42,640 --> 00:47:44,680
Speaker 1: in the right direction. Yeah. And again if you're like, well,

810
00:47:44,680 --> 00:47:48,680
Speaker 1: well whoa, that's a lot of taxpayer money, Well again,

811
00:47:48,840 --> 00:47:51,400
Speaker 1: if you if you look at what the CBO alone,

812
00:47:51,680 --> 00:47:54,520
Speaker 1: spending a dollar on, the CBO comes up with ninety

813
00:47:54,560 --> 00:47:58,960
Speaker 1: dollars worth of places to cut government waste. These are

814
00:47:59,040 --> 00:48:01,920
Speaker 1: these are these are things to spend money on, and

815
00:48:01,960 --> 00:48:04,560
Speaker 1: you may have a cleaner, more legitimate government as a

816
00:48:04,600 --> 00:48:07,520
Speaker 1: result too, And that's priceless. Yeah. I mean, they made

817
00:48:07,560 --> 00:48:11,160
Speaker 1: some some excellent case that in the seventies, when the

818
00:48:11,200 --> 00:48:14,319
Speaker 1: government had a lot of staff that was smart, that

819
00:48:14,400 --> 00:48:18,080
Speaker 1: had a lot of institutional memory and knowledge that they

820
00:48:18,120 --> 00:48:21,000
Speaker 1: got things done, like the Church Committee, um and the

821
00:48:21,040 --> 00:48:25,759
Speaker 1: Pike Committee, both of which revealed massive horrible stuff that

822
00:48:25,840 --> 00:48:29,000
Speaker 1: the CIA was doing, like dosing unsuspecting Americans with LSC

823
00:48:29,480 --> 00:48:31,759
Speaker 1: that came out of congressional investigations that you do not

824
00:48:31,800 --> 00:48:35,960
Speaker 1: see any longer. Um. If you had committee staff that

825
00:48:36,040 --> 00:48:40,239
Speaker 1: were well paid, um, they would hang around and you

826
00:48:40,280 --> 00:48:42,759
Speaker 1: would have a lot more laws being passed, a lot

827
00:48:42,760 --> 00:48:46,960
Speaker 1: more deliberations being passed. Right now, it's all fundraising going on.

828
00:48:47,280 --> 00:48:49,839
Speaker 1: That's what your legislators do. They get elected, they come

829
00:48:49,880 --> 00:48:52,080
Speaker 1: to Washington, have their picture taken there, and then they

830
00:48:52,120 --> 00:48:54,640
Speaker 1: go back out and start raising money for reelection. Right

831
00:48:55,480 --> 00:48:58,359
Speaker 1: and they're raising money from the very people who are

832
00:48:58,400 --> 00:49:01,120
Speaker 1: working as lobbyists. So oh yeah, all you have to

833
00:49:01,160 --> 00:49:06,359
Speaker 1: do is create good jobs instead of aggressional researchers, and

834
00:49:06,640 --> 00:49:10,759
Speaker 1: you've got your lobbying problem largely licked. Yeah. I agree, man,

835
00:49:10,920 --> 00:49:13,759
Speaker 1: I don't see any problem with this idea. It's it's

836
00:49:13,800 --> 00:49:17,200
Speaker 1: sad whenever we dig into stuff like this. How like

837
00:49:17,239 --> 00:49:20,440
Speaker 1: I talked about the Insiders Club. How, I don't know,

838
00:49:20,480 --> 00:49:23,680
Speaker 1: it just seems like it's such a broken, messed up system.

839
00:49:23,680 --> 00:49:27,240
Speaker 1: It is. There was another thing I read um about

840
00:49:27,280 --> 00:49:31,239
Speaker 1: something called rent seeking, which is where um through lobbyists,

841
00:49:31,239 --> 00:49:33,600
Speaker 1: the corporation will go and just try to get a

842
00:49:33,600 --> 00:49:36,799
Speaker 1: piece of the pie, not for doing anything, not even

843
00:49:36,800 --> 00:49:39,840
Speaker 1: necessarily a contract, but to say, like a subsidy. And

844
00:49:39,920 --> 00:49:43,359
Speaker 1: like the fossil fuel subsidies are amounted to thirty seven

845
00:49:43,400 --> 00:49:45,840
Speaker 1: and a half billion dollars in two thousand and fourteen.

846
00:49:45,880 --> 00:49:48,640
Speaker 1: That was just stuff that the government gave, just money.

847
00:49:48,640 --> 00:49:52,520
Speaker 1: The government gave Um Oil and other fossil fuel companies

848
00:49:52,680 --> 00:49:55,360
Speaker 1: just for existing, right, And that's called rent seeking. It

849
00:49:55,400 --> 00:49:58,520
Speaker 1: doesn't do anything. They don't they're not producing anything to

850
00:49:58,600 --> 00:50:01,239
Speaker 1: generate that income. They're spending a bunch of income to

851
00:50:01,280 --> 00:50:03,920
Speaker 1: go suck it out of the federal budget. Right. And

852
00:50:04,000 --> 00:50:06,440
Speaker 1: I mean, if you want to talk about wealth redistribution,

853
00:50:06,760 --> 00:50:09,520
Speaker 1: that's like the the the clearest version of it you

854
00:50:09,520 --> 00:50:13,880
Speaker 1: can possibly imagine. And that's through lobbying. Yeah, and this

855
00:50:13,960 --> 00:50:16,759
Speaker 1: is just lobbying, Like, don't get me started on things

856
00:50:16,760 --> 00:50:19,960
Speaker 1: like campaign finance and all the other ways. That's another

857
00:50:19,960 --> 00:50:22,680
Speaker 1: one we should do. Yeah, I actually wrote that article,

858
00:50:23,200 --> 00:50:25,960
Speaker 1: um Man, how was it? But it was depressing. It

859
00:50:26,040 --> 00:50:28,759
Speaker 1: was depressing and tough, and it's probably way out of date,

860
00:50:29,680 --> 00:50:31,680
Speaker 1: so we will update it. Yeah, it would need a

861
00:50:31,719 --> 00:50:35,600
Speaker 1: lot of like our dating, let's do it. Campaign finance reform,

862
00:50:35,680 --> 00:50:40,319
Speaker 1: big big thing. Remember our presidential um debates one that

863
00:50:40,440 --> 00:50:43,640
Speaker 1: was eye opening. Remember there's like a whole commission that

864
00:50:43,800 --> 00:50:48,439
Speaker 1: has a stranglehold on presidential debates. And yeah, I have

865
00:50:48,960 --> 00:50:50,160
Speaker 1: got to go back on list two. It is a

866
00:50:50,160 --> 00:50:52,040
Speaker 1: good one. Most of them. I'm like, oh, yeah, I

867
00:50:52,040 --> 00:50:56,840
Speaker 1: remember that. All right. Uh, well, if you want to

868
00:50:56,880 --> 00:50:59,279
Speaker 1: know more about lobbying, you can type that word in

869
00:50:59,320 --> 00:51:01,080
Speaker 1: the search part how stuff works and it will bring

870
00:51:01,160 --> 00:51:04,760
Speaker 1: up this fine article. Uh. And since I said search parts,

871
00:51:04,800 --> 00:51:09,279
Speaker 1: time for a listener mail. All right, I'm gonna call

872
00:51:09,320 --> 00:51:13,600
Speaker 1: this binge listening Colin Newest the oldest, uh, Dudes and Jerry,

873
00:51:13,640 --> 00:51:15,920
Speaker 1: By the way, I labored over that subject line like

874
00:51:15,960 --> 00:51:19,520
Speaker 1: a publicist, and it's still awful. It's bad, is what

875
00:51:19,560 --> 00:51:23,080
Speaker 1: Colin said. Dudes and Jerry. I've been slowly making my

876
00:51:23,120 --> 00:51:25,840
Speaker 1: way through the catalog of episodes, and for any new listeners,

877
00:51:26,320 --> 00:51:29,360
Speaker 1: I'd like to advocate for listening through them from newest

878
00:51:29,360 --> 00:51:32,840
Speaker 1: to oldest, in other words, reverse order, rather than oldest

879
00:51:32,840 --> 00:51:35,200
Speaker 1: to newest. Which is how I assume most would listen.

880
00:51:36,400 --> 00:51:39,000
Speaker 1: While the references to old episodes might be a little confusing,

881
00:51:39,320 --> 00:51:42,319
Speaker 1: they also build a sense of anticipation once you get there.

882
00:51:42,880 --> 00:51:45,320
Speaker 1: I could see that. For example, I finally listened to

883
00:51:45,400 --> 00:51:49,560
Speaker 1: the infamous episode on the Sun. You made so many

884
00:51:49,640 --> 00:51:51,960
Speaker 1: references over the years to how bad that episode was

885
00:51:52,520 --> 00:51:54,120
Speaker 1: that by the time I got to it, I was

886
00:51:54,200 --> 00:51:57,560
Speaker 1: literally laughing from beginning to end, So it becomes like

887
00:51:57,560 --> 00:51:59,560
Speaker 1: a comedy episode at that. Yeah, it's kind of cool.

888
00:52:00,080 --> 00:52:02,680
Speaker 1: You could almost hear Chuck's brain sizzling and melting as

889
00:52:02,680 --> 00:52:07,240
Speaker 1: the episode went on. True minded too. If I didn't

890
00:52:07,239 --> 00:52:09,920
Speaker 1: have that sense of anticipation, your agony wouldn't have been

891
00:52:09,960 --> 00:52:13,040
Speaker 1: as sweet. I like this idea. I think he makes

892
00:52:13,040 --> 00:52:15,160
Speaker 1: a lot of sense. I dread the day that I

893
00:52:15,239 --> 00:52:18,160
Speaker 1: run out of episodes and experience of withdrawals, the shakes,

894
00:52:18,200 --> 00:52:20,920
Speaker 1: the jimmy legs that will inevitably come when I'm jones

895
00:52:20,920 --> 00:52:24,600
Speaker 1: and for new stuff. And that is Colin and or Land.

896
00:52:24,719 --> 00:52:30,040
Speaker 1: Oh alright, Colin, great email, terrible subject, Lind, but totally

897
00:52:30,080 --> 00:52:32,160
Speaker 1: forgivable because of the body. I didn't think it was

898
00:52:32,200 --> 00:52:35,040
Speaker 1: a bad pop binge. Listening to us to old us

899
00:52:35,400 --> 00:52:40,080
Speaker 1: it's a sink. I guess it's a it's just like this.

900
00:52:40,280 --> 00:52:45,960
Speaker 1: The uh it's fine, right, do better, Colin? But great

901
00:52:45,960 --> 00:52:49,680
Speaker 1: email calling. Oh but if he's listening, has he he

902
00:52:49,719 --> 00:52:51,759
Speaker 1: hasn't made it all the way back? Well, if he's

903
00:52:51,760 --> 00:52:54,560
Speaker 1: listening to us, to old us, so does he just

904
00:52:54,760 --> 00:52:56,759
Speaker 1: make time each week to listen to the newest one

905
00:52:56,800 --> 00:52:59,680
Speaker 1: and then go back to wherever he loves? I don't know. Well,

906
00:53:00,040 --> 00:53:02,839
Speaker 1: here we need to hear a follow up. God knows

907
00:53:02,880 --> 00:53:06,120
Speaker 1: when he'll hear this, Chuck, we need to contact him directly.

908
00:53:06,360 --> 00:53:08,560
Speaker 1: From feeling a great since of regret, I feel bad

909
00:53:08,600 --> 00:53:12,200
Speaker 1: for him because he's just heading straight for disappointment land

910
00:53:12,200 --> 00:53:14,920
Speaker 1: as he goes further and further back in The cattle Man.

911
00:53:15,040 --> 00:53:17,520
Speaker 1: There's some episodes I'd just like to just redo, which

912
00:53:17,520 --> 00:53:19,960
Speaker 1: we have done some of them, like when they were

913
00:53:20,000 --> 00:53:23,360
Speaker 1: like five minutes. Then they were cool topics. You know,

914
00:53:23,440 --> 00:53:27,040
Speaker 1: we should just remove those from the internet. Let's do um.

915
00:53:27,360 --> 00:53:29,680
Speaker 1: I would like to redo the trolley problem one you

916
00:53:29,680 --> 00:53:31,759
Speaker 1: and I didn't do. I did with Chris Pallette and

917
00:53:32,200 --> 00:53:36,480
Speaker 1: it deserves like its own big current modern incarnation and stuff.

918
00:53:36,480 --> 00:53:38,840
Speaker 1: You should have episode. We should probably do all the

919
00:53:38,840 --> 00:53:42,600
Speaker 1: ones I wasn't on how that. We'll call it the

920
00:53:42,640 --> 00:53:45,640
Speaker 1: Summer of Chuck. Yeah. If you want to be like

921
00:53:45,719 --> 00:53:47,600
Speaker 1: calling and get in touch with us and let us

922
00:53:47,640 --> 00:53:50,440
Speaker 1: scrutinize your words, you can tweet to us at s

923
00:53:50,560 --> 00:53:53,160
Speaker 1: y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook,

924
00:53:53,239 --> 00:53:55,439
Speaker 1: dot com slash Stuff you Should Know. You can send

925
00:53:55,480 --> 00:53:57,919
Speaker 1: us an email to stuff podcast, to how Stuff Works

926
00:53:57,960 --> 00:54:00,480
Speaker 1: dot com, and as always, join us or home on

927
00:54:00,520 --> 00:54:06,320
Speaker 1: the web. Stuff you Should Know dot com. Stuff you

928
00:54:06,320 --> 00:54:09,080
Speaker 1: Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works.

929
00:54:09,120 --> 00:54:11,360
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart

930
00:54:11,440 --> 00:54:13,960
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

931
00:54:13,960 --> 00:54:17,800
Speaker 1: favorite shows. H