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above $5 billion during the election cycle of 2009–2010 (the annual lobbying outlays should be added across the two years of the election cycle to compare them with campaign contributions). Some of these outlays are essentially campaign contributions disguised as spending on lobbyists. Corporations pay the lobbying firms, which then channel the funds to campaigns through their staffs’ contributions to the campaigns and through the funding of issue campaigns linked to candidates. Lobbyists also earn kudos by hiring the family members of politicians and by keeping lucrative jobs in wait for politicians, military brass, and regulators, to be taken up once they leave office.

Figure 7.2: Total Lobbying Outlays (in Constant 2008 Dollars), 1998–2010

Source: Data from Center for Responsive Politics.

In his excellent recent book on corporate lobbying, So Damn Much Money, Robert Kaiser summarizes the record this way:

By 2007, everyone in the system took it for granted that a high percentage of members and staff would eventually pass through the revolving door, because so many already had. A 2007 directory of Washington lobbyists listed 188 former members of the House and Senate who were registered to lobby. A study done by Public Citizen, an advocacy group, found that half the senators and 42 percent of House members who left Congress between 1998 and 2004 became lobbyists. Another study found that 3,600 former Congressional aides had passed through the revolving door. Appointees from the executive branch followed the same path. In early 2008 the Center for Responsive Politics, a watchdog group, identified 310 former appointees of George W. Bush who had become lobbyists or Washington representatives. The center identified 283 former Clinton administration officials who had done the same.7

The list of top sectors in lobbying is like a who’s who of bad corporate behavior. Table 7.1 shows the total lobbying outlays by sector during 1998–2011, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The top sectors are the same ones where the economy is in the deepest trouble, and for reasons directly tied to regulatory failures: finance, health care, transport, agribusiness, and others. Each has landed remarkably cushy federal contracts, subsidies, tax breaks, and lax regulation and oversight. It should also be no surprise that finance, real estate, health care, and pharmaceutical companies rank among the lowest in public approval in Gallup polls, in all cases receiving “net negative” rankings by the public (in the August 2009 survey).8 These industries epitomize the destructive policies produced by the corporatocracy, and the public knows it.

Table 7.1: Lobbying by Sector (1998–2011)

Source: Data from Center for Responsive Politics.

America’s Two Right-of-Center Parties

Every recent president has been caught in the same web of campaign financing and well-heeled special interests. Every candidate draws funds from the same sources, and all must hone their policy positions accordingly. Even as politics heats up in shouting matches on the air, the real range of policy prescriptions is shockingly narrow. For all the times that Obama has been accused by the right wing of dragging America to socialism, the actual content of Obama’s policies is often nearly indistinguishable from his predecessor’s. For all of the talk about the logjams in Washington, what have been the real differences between Bush and Obama?

Bush wanted tax cuts for 100 percent of households; Obama campaigned on tax cuts for 95 percent of the households but, when the deadline approached in December 2010, agreed to extend tax cuts for all.

Bush supported large deficits, in order to maintain low taxes and high military spending; Obama also supported large deficits, mainly as a macroeconomic stimulus.

Bush bailed out the banks and the auto companies; Obama continued those policies.

Bush supported immigration reform but was blocked by his own party; Obama favors immigration reform but is blocked by both parties.

Bush favored nuclear power and deep-sea oil drilling;