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 ;).
