Lobbying Reform: Who's fooling who?

During the past 15 years I have worked with over 700 privately-held small and medium-sized businesses. I am always happy when they are buzzing along making a good profit and taking care of their employees. Heck, I teach Entrepreneurship, Business and Finance, so I'm about whatever contributes to our economy and the public good.

Baby, that train has derailed and we look at our elected officials on both sides of the aisle and say "What's up?" How come they're not as angry and fed up as we are? One word: Lobbyists.

I'm going to focus on prices at the pump squeezed from us like blood from a turnip, but I could have picked most public companies in any industry, such as drug companies doing the same thing in Medicare Plan "D". Beware, likely no extensions past May 15, which will really harm over one-third of our seniors on fixed incomes.

In U.S.A Today (April 25, 2006), it shows some states already have gas prices exceeding $3.00/gal. and oil companies continue to report record profits. What caught my eye is the industry lobbying group ad that says that taxes make up 19% of every dollar spent on oil. Most every accountant will tell you that public corporations pay at the 40% federal rate given the profits big companies like Exxon/Mobil are reaping. This would suggest they're not even paying their fair share of taxes for the very military that is protecting their oil interests in the middle east! Their CEO Raymond received $165,000 an hour in 2005! That is not a typo - an hour. Compare this to middle class annual pay and figure how much $3.00, $3.50, $4.00, $4.50 and $5.00 a gallon will reduce your take home pay each year. Is it $1,000, $2,000, $3,000 or more? This is before price hikes for other things like groceries, which will ramp up at least 20% or more depending when this insanity ends.

Back to my point. So what have our elected officials been doing to "reform" lobbying? Well they just proposed a temporary stop to luxury perks... well at least until after the elections this year. Only company executives can fly with you on their corporate jets to exotic places, not their lobbyists. But don't worry, lobbyists can't directly pay for $100 dinners to members of Congress, but they can put on a lavish fundraising party and bring in 200 of their closest $1,000-a- plate friends to watch you not take $100 from the lobbyist. Let's see, that's $200,000 versus the $100.

Do you think that if we send folks to Washington who are already insiders, they're going to really show the integrity to put forth reform with real teeth? History proves time and again that those with chummy relationships aren't going to change their spots. What I'm after is legislation that makes 'em wear stripes (prison issue would be nice).

So the next time somebody points out the $1.0 million plus funds raised by candidates as a measure of their viability - you ought to think about the $1,000 you're out due to higher gas prices, then slug 'em or walk away!