> The typical hire former government workers to lobby current government might also be in danger if the President goes through with his anti-lobbyist rule changes.
This is one thing that I'm really looking forward to.
Trump's proposal is a five-year ban on becoming a registered lobbyist after leaving a government job. This sounds good on paper -- but the more likely reality is that it will simply lead to lobbying becoming more covert, as former government employees working on behalf of corporations won't register as lobbyists.
It's also hard to believe that the Trump administration would do much to rein in backroom deals, considering the President himself hasn't released his tax returns nor taken any credible steps to solve the massive conflicts of interest posed by his holdings.
> This sounds good on paper -- but the more likely reality is that it will simply lead to lobbying becoming more covert, as former government employees working on behalf of corporations won't register as lobbyists.
And then they'll be breaking the law.
Pushing the practice underground will make it less effective and less common. The appearance of propriety goes a long way toward convincing people that there isn't enough profit in being improper.
> It's also hard to believe that the Trump administration would do much to rein in backroom deals, considering the President himself hasn't released his tax returns nor taken any credible steps to solve the massive conflicts of interest posed by his holdings.
I don't understand why people continue to revisit things like this when there are so many legitimate problems with Trump.
His tax returns are going to tell you how much money he made and how much tax he paid. How does that help you? It's bike shedding.
And the conflicts of interest are inherently unavoidable. Even if he put every cent of his money in a blind trust (which is obviously expensive if the assets are illiquid real estate holdings), what about his family's assets? What about his business partners? The only reason anyone cares about this is the appearance of impropriety. If that matters in this case then why not in the other?
Pushing the practice underground will make it less effective and less common.
That's also the logic of the "war on drugs". It may or may not work in this case -- I don't know -- but it will definitely make lobbying less documented and regulated.
What are the sanctions for undocumented lobbyists going to be? How will they be enforced, when the Trump administration is so strongly biased against transparency everywhere else?
Trump brags about exploiting loopholes: he said he would be smart to not pay any taxes (while not actually answering the question of whether he does). Applying that mindset to lobbying will lead to a situation where corporations pretend not to be doing it, the administration pretends not to see it -- and one campaign promise is delivered.
His tax returns matter as the very minimum expected gesture in transparency. At present Americans have no idea what the President owns and how he makes money (or maybe he doesn't -- in which case he would have a strong incentive to use his office to prop up the failing parts of his business empire). It's hard to believe this situation exists in a Western democracy in 2017.
The war on drugs isn't a failure because it failed to reduce drug use. It probably has a bit. The failure is that it did so only at the cost of massively increased violence, the erosion of civil liberties, mass incarceration and the debasement of the criminal justice system.
Do you predict lobbying cartels turning to violence to protect their business and so many citizens charged with breaking the law that it debases the justice system?
> It may or may not work in this case -- I don't know -- but it will definitely make lobbying less documented and regulated.
It's not as though there are currently such rigorous and effective regulations that everyone follows.
> What are the sanctions for undocumented lobbyists going to be? How will they be enforced, when the Trump administration is so strongly biased against transparency everywhere else?
The change is to who can be a lobbyist, not in the answer to any of those questions.
> His tax returns matter as the very minimum expected gesture in transparency.
Transparency is for what government officials do in office, not what they do in their private lives.
> At present Americans have no idea what the President owns and how he makes money (or maybe he doesn't -- in which case he would have a strong incentive to use his office to prop up the failing parts of his business empire).
If what he does is good policy that happens to coincide with his business interests, that is not actually a problem. If what he does is bad policy then it's a problem independent of whether it aligns with his business interests. Because what matters is what he does in office, not what he does as a private citizen.
I want his tax returns so we can get some clue as to whether his obsession with Russia is a childish crush on authoritarian bullies, which is a theme of his, or whether in fact there is a financial connection.
I want his tax returns to find out just how badly he's been lying about his net worth.
I want his tax returns because I honestly believe he'll be humiliated by us seeing them.
> I want his tax returns so we can get some clue as to whether his obsession with Russia is a childish crush on authoritarian bullies, which is a theme of his, or whether in fact there is a financial connection.
Which tax returns probably wouldn't tell you because even if there was it would only show up as revenue from some nondescript corporation in Delaware.
> I want his tax returns to find out just how badly he's been lying about his net worth.
Which tax returns probably wouldn't tell you because they deal with income rather than assets.
> I want his tax returns because I honestly believe he'll be humiliated by us seeing them.
Say you're one of the world's foremost experts on the economics of asteroid mining, and are employed by an asteroid mining company for a tremendous salary.
Suppose you decide that your industry as a whole will be both more productive and fairer to the world at large if you are able to spend a bunch of time educating senators about the intricacies of your field and the effects of different policies that they might introduce.
If you convince your employer to keep paying you while you do that, are you now a lobbyist? Are you being corrupt? Must you forego any income in order to make Congress more informed or to argue for universally beneficial policies?
You have all the same problems with prohibiting bribery of public officials. The governor gives a contract to Foo Corp and Foo Corp hires the governor's brother for $5M/year, is that corruption?
The conclusion to draw from this is not "oh well, guess we might as well legalize bribery."
"but the more likely reality is that it will simply lead to lobbying becoming more covert, as former government employees working on behalf of corporations won't register as lobbyists."
Even if it's not 100% effective, won't this significantly reduce this behavior? Certainly adds risk to the equation.
Many of his policies are questionable, but this one always sounded pretty good to me.
I mean I understand that we don't want stagnation of ideas and certain sects continuously ruling government. However, the reason that they are lobbyists is because they are generally experts on the subjects, in no small part due to their government experience. Removing all former government workers as lobbyists a blanket move is heavy-handed and poorly thought out.
Your version sounds good, but that's not the majority of what happens. They are lobbyists because they know people and its often a cushy, legal payoff for employees who helped the company secure and manage contracts while in government service. The most common reward is as an employee hire after they retire from government services, but the lobbyists often have their origin in the same process.
I don't disagree. My statement sounded far too overarching. Obviously, a lot of jobs are handouts in form of repayment. I don't think this should be encouraged but I don't think a law banning former federal employees is going to diminish the numerous concerns that lobbying brings up and potentially diminishes the quality of people advising current government.
I got your meaning (and think the down voting on your original comment is a bit harsh), but the pendulum is probably due to swing the other way, hard. I really don't know what a good balance point is. I have heard a 5 or 7 year ban bandied about, and maybe something time-based is the answer. I think until it goes to a total ban we won't find the true balance point.
The pendulum anaolgy is an excellent way of describing how politics in this country works. I've used it often over the past several weeks.
One option would be to limit how long someone can work for a lobbying organization (instead of how long must wait before lobbying after government service).
What if we restored the importance of civic duty in our society? Top talent could be incentivized to work for the government for non financial reasons.
I don't think anyone knows the answer to this problem (yet), but it is a large problem worth solving.
Personally, I do feel strongly about civic duty. But after having (briefly) worked on government contracts I found an incredible amount of waste, cronyism and general ineptitude to turn me off. So I joined the software startup world instead ;).
This is one thing that I'm really looking forward to.