comment rescues: corporate oligarchy and the government revolving door

Two thoughtful comments on my post yesterday about the corporate shadow government deserve greater attention (at least for the other three people reading) and a decent response.



Dana Garrett wrote:

Should I take it from your comment that there should be a prohibition against the government hiring former lobbyists? What about the reverse as well? Should there be a prohibition against big corporations hiring former federal government workers? I think there should for an extended period of time. Do you? Why or why not?

As much as I'd like to say a blanket "Yes" to such prohibitions, they raise interesting problems with respect to our current system--and I'd also point out that your two examples are not parallel as written.  Part of the problem is what I'd call the "Cabinet-level appointee" problem.  Take somebody with the serious chops and experience to be considered for a secretarial, deputy, or assistant position, who comes in with the Obama administration in 2009.  When Obama goes out, in either 2013 or 2017, so will they.  Where do they go?  These seem to be the choices:  (a) other political positions [e.g. Haley Barbour, John Sunnunu, etc.]; (b) academic positions; (c) independent consulting; (d) high-powered law firms [many of whom do direct corporate representation with the government]; (e) media commentator; (f) the corporate world, where they are chiefly valued for the relationships they have built as much as their expertise.  If we restrict (d) and (f) could it be argued that we are so cutting back those individuals' ability to use their talents and expertise to earn a living that nobody worth a crap will ever accept a government appointment again?

On the other hand, it is also possible to go to work for a corporation or a law firm and NOT do government lobbying, not register as a lobbyist, and stay in the other parts of the business.  Realistic?  In some cases, yes.  A lot of retired military folks do consulting work for weapons designers that is not sale-related.  A former Commerce official could perform market analysis without lobbying the government.  I really don't care if they work for the corporations so much as I care about whether they represent that corporation to the government.

By the way, this is hardly a purely Federal problem.  In the 1990s there was a gentleman at DOE in Delaware responsible for creating the DSTP.  He was also responsible in large measure for deciding which company got the lucrative contract to score the test.  Among other things he made several trips (at State expense) to different corporate headquarters to hear their presentations.  Then DOE selected the company he proposed for the contract, and less than six weeks later he accepted a high-paying job with the same company.  [Epilogue:  the company became infamous in the education community in DE for failing to return test scores on time, and botching quite a few of them.]

Kavips wrote:

Lobbyists, more than anyone in government, know how to get things done. They know which person to call, something a pure college student would have no idea were he filling that position. There is something to be said for using their experience. Just need some way to insure corruption is dampened down.

But the question here is not "getting things done," but "what gets done?"  Take the case of William Lynn in the Pentagon.  As a senior Raytheon exec, he certainly belonged to the fraternity of "the right people to call," but how have we benefitted from his expertise?  Under his watch, for example, corporate defense profits have continued to drive our foreign policy in unhealthy directions, as Raytheon and other companies have had booms in overseas sales approved by Lynn at a pace that were never approved before under either party.  Having mostly maxed out the possible profits in the domestic market, the defense corporations under President Obama have been having a field day selling more weapons and weapons-related technology than ever before.

What Lynn has presided over [with virtually no media scrutiny] has been far more extensive than any connection between Dick Cheney and Haliburton.

Corporate lobbyists not only deal in direction corruption, they also subtly influence policy for the best interests of their industries, not necessarily the best interests of the country.  Unless you subscribe to the idea that "What's good for Raytheon is good for the country," this is a problem.

That said, I don't object per se to having a senior person from a defense corporation become a government official--as long as that person was never actually a paid, registered government lobbyist who job it was to directly solicit Federal bucks.

Here's what strikes me as truly strange about America:  George W. Bush proposed handing out some money to "faith-based" initiatives, and got a shitstorm of criticism because this would violate the "separation of church and state."

Where's the "separation of corporation and state"?