Who's Paying the Super-Committee?

George Zornick - August 12, 2011 - The Nation

 

The Congressional “super-committee” finally has a roster: we now know the twelve men and women tasked with cutting as much as $1.5 trillion from the federal budget, and quite possibly restructuring entitlements and rewriting the federal tax code.

Unlike any other Congressional committee in recent memory, this “super-committee” will wield enormous legislative power. Their recommendations will be fast-tracked in Congress, meaning they cannot be amended and are guaranteed a simple-majority vote in the Senate. If the super-committee does not produce recommendations, or if Congress does not approve them, massive triggers will be activated: $1.5 trillion will be cut from the budget, drawing equally from defense and domestic spending.

With this much power concentrated among twelve people, K Street is revving up the money machine to help influence the decisions. “Every lobbyist is going to go through their Rolodex to try and figure out all the connections to the twelve members of the ‘super committee,’ ” Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, told Bloomberg. One Democratic lobbyist quipped to Politico that he was preparing for the super-committee “by writing twelve really large checks.”

Legislators on both sides of the aisle are already concerned about the cannons of cash now aimed directly at the super-committee members. Republican Senators David Vitter and Dean Heller have both introduced legislation to impose transparency requirements and additional financial disclosure from members of the super-committee; in the House, Democratic Representative Mike Quigley and Republican Representative Jim Renacci are circulating a letter calling for, among other things, weekly disclosures from super-committee members campaign contributions and meetings with lobbyists.

Super-committee members, who were selected to represent their party, not strictly their own interests, will no doubt act for a wide variety of strategic and political reasons. And as The Nation's Ari Berman has written, there are much larger problems with the scope of the committee regardless of who is on it, because it will choose between a variety of bad options, and cannot act on job creation. But it’s still important to understand what industries are lobbying them—and which industries already have the inside track.

To that end, The Nation looked at campaign finance data from the Center for Responsive Politics for each member—Democratic Senators John Kerry, Patty Murray, Max Baucus and Democratic Representatives Xavier Becerra, James Clyburn and Chris Van Hollen; and Republican Senators Jon Kyl, Rob Portman, Pat Toomey and Republican Representatives Fred Upton, Dave Camp and Jeb Hensarling.

Two areas were examined: donations from Political Action Committees, and industry donations—money from industry PACs and individuals associated with that industry. The totals are since 1998, when the data becomes available, or over the member’s career since then (in their current seat). When the dollars are tallied, it's clear that the committee's Republicans have filled their campaign coffers with Wall Street money--that's their largest contributor. Democrats have substantial backing from labor groups that could serve as a counterweight, but they take in quite a bit of Wall Street cash themselves.

Political Action Committees

Democrats on the super-committee have taken over $30.6 million from PACs since 1998, and unsurprisingly the largest amount comes from labor PACs, with over $5.3 million in donations (click charts to see full size):

Representatives Clyburn and Becerra, along with Senator Murray, have the largest labor donations, each topping $1 million. Senator Kerry has the lowest from that group, with $267,861. The high totals for labor are typical for Democratic politicians, but may be a good sign for progressives hopeful the Democrats will stand strong against entitlement cuts, which unions strongly oppose.

The health industry is next, followed by the finance, insurance, and real estate sector—these are non-health insurance companies, commercial banks, finance and credit companies, securities and investment firms, and other big corporations typically found on Wall Street. Senator Baucus is the heavy hitter in this category—as chair of the Senate Finance Committee, he’s raked in $1.6 million from this sector. The only other member over $1 million is Representative Clyburn.

Note that for Democrats, both defense and agribusiness are fairly low on the list. Democrats might be more tempted to look toward farm subsidies and defense cuts when the red pens come out. Also, “ideological/single-issue” groups are fifth on the list, but a vast majority of that money was given to Senator Murray, and primarily by women’s groups. This money probably won’t have much bearing on the super-committee.

The Republicans on the super-committee have taken well over $24 million from just the ten largest PAC categories since 1998. By far, the largest contributor is the financial, insurance and real estate sector—also known as Wall Street:

Representative Jeb Hensarling has the biggest career haul from that sector, with $1,732,922 since 1998. This is not surprising, considering he has openly said that bank profits should trump consumer protection, and that recessions are “a part of freedom.”
Health is the next category, representing largely the for-profit health industry—medical professionals, HMOs, and pharmaceutical companies. “Ideological/single issue” PACs place fifth, with just under $2 million in contributions. That money is spread very evenly across the six members, suggesting they each are beholden to active, wealthy conservative groups. Naturally, labor is last on this list, but note that defense is second-last. The defense industry doesn’t have much money invested in this group, and none are prominent hawks.

Industry Money

The other category we examined was donations from industries. This includes both industry PACs and contributions from individual donors affiliated with a particular industry.

From their fourteen largest industry contributors, Democrats have taken in $118.4 million since 1998. Lawyers and law firms, which traditionally support Democrats, place first with over $33.5 million in donations. People who are retired are next, and of the next six categories, four represent the financial sector:

Interestingly, people who mark “retired” on their donations are by far the largest group donating to super-committee Republicans, who collected $29.7 million from their top fourteen industries since 1998. (Like the PAC money, this is much lower than the Democratic total. But it’s important to note that Senators Toomey and Portman are new to the Senate, while the Democrats have all been in Congress since at least 2004, most since before 1998. The data represents the money each industry has invested in the super-commmittee).

The high amount of money from the retired is not totally surprising, given that Republicans are generally an older party, but the super-committee Republicans do indeed have a large number of donors who could be harmed by cuts to Medicare or Social Security.

Again, this data doesn’t provide a unifying theory of how each member will act. There are certainly larger political calculations at play. But when they start getting deep into the federal budget, removing or reducing potentially hundreds of lines, or when they attack the vastly complex tax code, there’s no doubt that special interests will come calling.

Republicans look to privatize Medicare

(And this will include another Democrat capitulation, I'm certain.--jef)

GOP conference chairman: Medicare & Social Security is 'a cruel Ponzi scheme'
By Sahil Kapur
Friday, January 28th, 2011

WASHINGTON – House Republicans would support a plan to privatize Medicare in their annual budget, a member of the GOP leadership said.

Texas Rep. Jeb Hensarling, the House Republican Conference Chairman and second-ranked GOP member of the budget committee, made the revelation during a panel discussion, according to the National Journal.

"Unless you deal with Medicare, unless you go into Medicaid, unless you deal with Social Security for future generations—programs that were a great comfort to my grandparents and parents are morphing into a cruel Ponzi scheme for my 8-year-old daughter and my 7-year-old son," Hensarling said.

Social Security and Medicare are self-financed retirement security programs that taxpayers are required to pay into throughout their working lives.

The to-be-proposed GOP budget measure closely mirrors a provision in the high-profile "roadmap" put forth by budget committee chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), which would turn Medicare into a program of vouchers whose value gradually diminishes over time, and largely privatize Social Security.

"You can’t get there from here without those kinds of reforms," Hensarling said, "so I expect it to be in the budget, I hope it’ll be in the budget, and I would certainly support it."

A Gallup poll released Wednesday found that 61 percent of the public opposes cutting Medicare, as opposed to just 38 percent in favor.

After regaining control of the House this month, top Republicans championed Ryan's "roadmap," which would end Social Security and Medicare in their present forms and eventually turn them over to the private sector.

Democratic leaders shot back with a forceful posture on the popular safety-net programs.

“Republicans are trying to carry out their plan to end Social Security and Medicare," said Jon Summers, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). "In public, Republicans are trying to distance themselves from this extreme plan because they know hard-working Americans don’t want to see Social Security and Medicare ended. But they should stop trying to hide the ball, and just come out and say what has become perfectly clear: that ending Social Security and Medicare is now the official position of the Republican Party."

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the third-ranking Democrat in the chamber, also chimed in.

"Anyone who doesn't think privatization will mean severe cuts to Medicare benefits, I have a bridge I'd like to sell them," he said, according to The Associated Press. "Privatization will make the cuts previously proposed by either party look tame."

Are Congressional Ethics a Contradiction?

Another House Investigation
Walter Shapiro, Senior Correspondent | 07/15/10

Somewhere out there is a citizen so naïve that he actually is convinced that Congress is filled with idealistic men and women completely dedicated to public service who never, ever think about campaign contributions before casting a vote. This American innocent, who believes all the civics book verities about Congress, probably also lives in a cottage with a gingerbread roof and reads "Pollyanna" every night before falling asleep dreaming of sugar plum fairies.

For the rest of the American people -- those cynics who can understand why Congress as a bipartisan institution has an approval rating about on par with the Hell's Angels -- the following will help explain how a bill really becomes a law:

Eight congressmen -- five Republicans and three Democrats -- are under investigation by the Office of Congressional Ethics for allegedly soliciting campaign contributions from the financial services industry just before the House voted on Wall Street reform last December. The investigation, still in its preliminary stages, may never lead to a formal inquiry by the House ethics committee. But the details that have emerged so far, through leaks to The New York Times, paint a disturbing portrait of congressional business as usual when votes and campaign cash were up for grabs and Wall Street fortunes were at stake.

New York Democrat Joseph Crowley attended a 25-person Capitol Hill fundraiser in his honor on December 10, organized by a financial industry lobbyist, just hours before he voted for an amendment to weaken the financial reform bill. That same day Georgia Republican Tom Price, who opposed the bill, held a "Financial Services Luncheon" to solicit campaign contributions from guess what industry?

A senior Crowley staffer issued a statement to the Times declaring (surprise), "Congressman Crowley has always complied with the letter and spirit of all rules regarding fund-raising." Price, through a staffer, sent an equally predictable e-mail to Politics Daily, stating, "My voting record and opposition to Washington bailouts has been consistent since day one...My beliefs reflect the views of my constituents and my policy decisions are based on what's in the best interests of my constituents and our country."

The Times did not provide details why the Office of Congressional Ethics is probing the fundraising activities of six other House members: Republicans Jeb Hensarling (Texas), John Campbell (California), Christopher Lee (New York) and Frank Lucas (Oklahoma), along with Democrats Earl Pomeroy (North Dakota) and Melvin Watt (North Carolina). But all eight legislators raised between $4,000 and $30,000 in contributions from the financial sector in the 10 days before the House voted on Wall Street reform on Dec. 11.

Congressional ethics are an oxymoronic concept -- and Capitol Hill conduct that would appall a moralist may be perfectly legal under the convoluted rules that govern the House. Legislators in both parties are day and night constantly attending corporate-sponsored fundraisers filled with donors whose motivations are not exactly good government. The wink-and-nod transactions are not spelled out (that would be bribery) but even the dimmest legislators know they are being rewarded for prior votes and paid in advance for future votes.

The Office of Congressional Ethics -- a new investigative arm of the House created by Nancy Pelosi after the 2008 elections -- appears to be trying to define periods (such as on the verge of a vote) when special-interest fundraising is inappropriate. The goal seems laudable, but do the precise details of timing really matter? Is a fundraising event that comes with an implicit quid pro quo any more ethically defensible if it occurs a month before a congressional vote rather than the day before the climactic roll call?

An inescapable sense of fatalism overhangs any discussion of congressional fundraising. Public financing of elections -- the favored remedy of reformers for decades -- seems about as politically attainable as immediate statehood for Kazakhstan. After the Supreme Court's eviscerated campaign finance laws early this year with the Citizens United decision legalizing corporate political advertising, it seems futile to look to Congress to write new laws that may not stand constitutional scrutiny. The situation is so bleak that one is almost tempted to propose fanciful notions such as requiring corporate lobbyists to write their political checks directly to the media consultants and the TV stations rather than having them first laundered by passing through a congressman's political bank account.

Even public shaming through full disclosure of everything has its limits. As Meredith McGhee, the policy director at the Campaign Legal Center, a Washington public interest group, put it, "The desperation for money among members of Congress so outweighs the fear of repercussions. There is no shame any more. The only thing that's worse than the bad publicity is not getting the money."

With the exception of Democrat Earl Pomeroy, who faces a difficult re-election as the lone congressman from North Dakota, none of the legislators under investigation by the Office of Congressional Ethics face a vigorous challenge in November. But for a congressman in a one-party district, the power of a hefty campaign bank account is a deterrent. It is a brave and foolhardy primary challenger who would dare take on a House incumbent with $5 million sitting in the bank. The result is that all congressional incumbents -- even those who rack up lopsided victory margins worthy of a North Korean election -- worry about fundraising.

There is, in theory, a free-market solution to the problem of a Congress that puts up a "For Sale" sign before major votes. Every time Internet fundraising takes off -- first with Howard Dean in the 2004 Democratic primaries and then dramatically with Barack Obama in 2008 -- it fosters the hope that the combination of political passions and new technology will usher in an era of small-donor online giving. But, for the most part, this kind of mass-market fundraising that would displace special-interest giving only works in presidential campaigns and a few other high-profile races.

The more unpopular Congress becomes, the more irresistible is the lure of tainted special-interest contributions for legislators in both parties. For the sad truth has become this: Who would willingly write a check to most senators and House members other than those with a financial stake in business before the Congress? So the dance of legislation continues with nightly stops at corporate fundraisers all over Capitol Hill.