Skip to main content

BREAKING! Lobbying dries up and disappears in the new administration

NOT.

From the DC Examiner:

Early numbers suggest that the first quarter of 2009 has seen lobbying in the nation’s capital spike by nearly 22 percent over last year, which would be the largest ever increase in lobbying activity — and a strong indication that President Barack Obama has helped usher in a Golden Era for K Street.

Between Jan. 1 and March 16 this year, the Senate Office of Public Records received 1,381 new lobbying registrations, which include new lobbying firms, new clients at existing firms, and businesses hiring their first lobbyists. This is the largest batch of new registrations since 1999, the first year these records were kept, and a 21.7 percent increase over last year.

If you subtract the lobbying accounts that have been terminated, you get a net gain in active lobbying accounts this year of 1,252, which represents a surge of 13.5 percent over last year’s growth of 1,103 net lobbying accounts in the same period.
The number of active lobbying accounts is not the only measure of lobbying activity — dollars spent is probably the most important number, but first-quarter figures on that won’t be available until late April. The first quarter, of course, has two weeks remaining, and 76 days is a small sample size, but the bump in new registrations is significant enough to support anecdotal evidence that Obama’s ambitious agenda and breakneck pace are a major boon to the very industry he ran against.

The $787 billion stimulus bill, which was the largest spending bill in U.S. history, and the $410 billion fiscal year 2009 omnibus spending bill, which was larded with 8,750 earmarks, attracted thousands of lobbyists in search of pet programs and earmarks. This column reported on dozens of town, city, county and state governments or government agencies hiring new lobbyists this winter — an effort to grab a share of the trillion dollars in spending on the table.

Obama doesn’t deserve full responsibility, however. From 1999 to 2007, federal lobbying spending grew by an average rate of 8 percent a year. From 2007 to 2008, the amount of lobbying accelerated, with spending growing by a record 14 percent, even with the recession and the election putting a damper on fourth-quarter lobbying activity. If lobbying spending grew by 14 percent last year with flat growth in net new accounts in the spring, what will this spring’s boom in new accounts yield?
Reading through the new registrations, three growth sectors seem to be driving the lobbying boom: municipalities, alternative energy and Democratic firms picking up corporate clients.

Towns, cities, counties and states (some as small as Cordova, Alaska, population 2,251) bought into K Street this year, mostly seeking stimulus funding. Will these local governments terminate their lobbyists this year, or — as often occurs — will they continue seeking favors now that they’ve got a taste of Washington largess? If the latter occurs, the Obama lobbying boom will be of unprecedented magnitude.


But, of course, all the lobbyists inside the administration will keep that from happening, right?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Obligatory Libertarian Tax Day Post

The most disturbing factoid that I learned on Tax Day was that the average American must now spend a full twenty-four hours filling out tax forms. That's three work days. Or, think of it this way: if you had to put in two hours per night after dinner to finish your taxes, that's two weeks (with Sundays off). I saw a talking head economics professor on some Philly TV channel pontificating about how Americans procrastinate. He was laughing. The IRS guy they interviewed actually said, "Tick, tick, tick." You have to wonder if Governor Ruth Ann Minner and her cohorts put in twenty-four hours pondering whether or not to give Kraft Foods $708,000 of our State taxes while demanding that school districts return $8-10 million each?

New Warfare: I started my posts with a discussion.....

.....on Unrestricted warfare . The US Air force Institute for National Security Studies have developed a reasonable systems approach to deter non-state violent actors who they label as NSVA's. It is an exceptionally important report if we want to deter violent extremism and other potential violent actors that could threaten this nation and its security. It is THE report our political officials should be listening to to shape policy so that we do not become excessive in using force against those who do not agree with policy and dispute it with reason and normal non-violent civil disobedience. This report, should be carefully read by everyone really concerned with protecting civil liberties while deterring violent terrorism and I recommend if you are a professional you send your recommendations via e-mail at the link above so that either 1.) additional safeguards to civil liberties are included, or 2.) additional viable strategies can be used. Finally, one can only hope that politici

More of This, Please

Or perhaps I should say, "Less of this one, please." Or how about just, "None of them. Ever again. Please....For the Love of God." Sunshine State Poll: Grayson In Trouble The latest Sunshine State/VSS poll shows controversial Democratic incumbent Alan Grayson trailing former state Senator Dan Webster by seven points, 43 percent to 36 percent. A majority of respondents -- 51 percent -- disapprove of the job that Grayson is doing. Independents have an unfavorable view of him as well, by a 36/47 margin. Grayson has ignored the conventional wisdom that a freshman should be a quiet member who carefully tends to the home fires. The latest controversy involves his " Taliban Dan " advertisement, where he explicitly compares his opponent to the Taliban, and shows a clip of Webster paraphrasing Ephesians 5:22 -- "wives, submit to your husbands." An unedited version of the clip shows that Webster was actually suggesting that husba