Washington on $10 Million A Day: How Lobbyists Plunder the Nation [Hardcover]

Ken Silverstein (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2002

From the creator of CounterPunch--the "essential" (Noam Chomsky) newsletter--comes a lively expose of who really runs Washington. This gut-wrenching chronicle of the hostile takeover of democracy names the names and lays the blame. Silverstein fingers the corporate villains--from Boeing to UPS--who pay the hired guns to bag the big concessions of corporate welfare Extensive radio promos. National media publicity. Author speaking tour. .

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Washington on $10 Million a Day provides a detailed account of how U.S. lobbyists receive millions of dollars from their clients to not just sway but win the opinions of our nation's congresspeople. As Silverstein points out, it's surprisingly easy to do when a lobbying firm has the big budget of a large corporation or less-favored nation backing up their efforts.

Some tricks of the lobbyists' trade? Use independent-sounding front groups to solicit public support for unpopular laws. Create ostensibly independent think tanks to document research supporting a corporate-favored law. (Of course Olestra is safe! Yes, we need the B-2 bomber. Disposable diapers are as environmentally sound as cloth.) Use a grassroots movement to simulate public support for an initiative (never mind that this supposedly populist effort has been covertly organized by the lobbyists themselves). Of course, winning a politician's favor is the most direct route to change: offer election campaign contributions; paid "research trips" at plush, sybaritic resorts; or a lucrative post-term career in exchange for support of a particular bill.

Silverstein offers example after convincing example of politicians persuaded more by the machinations of a lobbying firm than an issue's innate merits. He never broaches the subject of whether lobbyists actually serve any useful purpose in the political process. The book's attitude toward lobbyists is unquestionably negative; one can only assume his answer would be no. But a discussion of lobbying's possible merits would have provided a less one-sided basis for the book's points.

Silverstein says the U.S. public's apathy toward Washington's "business-as-usual" scandals and surreptitiousness, to some extent, permits the situation to continue, but reading Washington on $10 Million a Day only reinforces that feeling. The book's last chapter includes "A Brief Guide to Taking Back the Capital." Brief is correct--Silverstein devotes only three pages to ways of lessening lobbyists' influence. But he makes an important point here: with running for office as expensive as it is (an average of $500,000 for a seat in the House of Representatives, $5 million for one in the Senate), Washington's lobbyists and politicians make natural bedfellows. Americans must find ways to make the situation less comfortable for both parties. --Kris Law

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Pimps to Power: Lobbyists and the Destruction of Democracy

When Fortune published its 1997 list of the nation's top 500 corporations, the magazine could barely restrain its exuberance. The previous year had been "extraordinary" with regard to profitability, Fortune said, as companies "restructured, reengineered, refinanced, downsized, laid off, split up, and merged their way to prosperity." All this had been furthered by "an almost magically favorable economic climate," highlighted by low interest rates and "benign labor costs."

For business and the wealthy, these past few years truly have been the best of times. Profits at Fortune 500 firms rose by 23.3 percent in 1997, after climbing by 13.4 percent the previous year. Salaries for top managers are also soaring. Business Week, a publication not normally known for its radical politics, says executive pay is "Out of Control." The magazine reports that the average salary and bonus for CEOs at the nation's biggest firms rose by 39 percent in 1996, to $2.3 million. Total compensation, which includes retirement benefits, incentive plans and stock option packages, was up 54 percent, to $5.7 million. Corporate America's hired help didn't do nearly as well. Workers' salaries rose about 3 percent in 1996, leaving average compensation for CEOs at 209 times higher than that of factory workers.

Meanwhile, the wealthy are paying less and less to the treasury in the form of taxes. Some 2,400 Americans with annual income of $200,000 or more paid no taxes in 1993, compared to just 85 wealthy individuals who escaped paying taxes in 1977. Since Congress in 1997 reduced inheritance taxes and the tax on capital gains, the number of rich Americans who pay little or no taxes is expected to grow in coming years.

Corporations are also avoiding tax payments. Two loopholes Congress provided to companies with operations overseas-the foreign tax credit and tax deferral on foreign income-cost the treasury about $24 billion per year. The bland term "accelerated depreciation" obscures a rule that allows companies to write off the cost of equipment faster than it actually wears out, a gift worth $28.3 billion annually. Overall, federal corporate income taxes have declined from 30.1 percent of total tax revenues during the 1940s to 12.2 percent in 1996.

Huge corporate profits and low taxes for the wealthy do indeed result from a "favorable economic climate," but there's nothing magical about it, as Fortune would have you believe. The policies behind the favorable climate are designed by politicians who are dependent on cash from Corporate America to finance their political careers. The deluge of business dollars-in 1996, the parties and their candidates raised $2.1 billion, an average of $5.75 million every day-means that elected leaders are sure to implement policies designed to fatten their sponsors' bottom lines.

The link between campaign donations and political policy was brought into sharp focus by the campaign finance scandals that erupted during the 1996 campaign. Even jaded observers were startled by the Clinton administration's selling of the Lincoln bedroom to the highest bidder, and its organizing of White House coffee klatsches to reward donors and encourage them to make additional contributions.

But political contributions are only one way that big business wins favors in Washington. The media's focus on who made what phone calls from where, and who gave what funds in exchange for which favors misses a broader picture. Understanding how the capital works, and how business prospers here, requires a trip through the world of beltway lobbying and a review of the vast army of hired guns working at the behest of Corporate America.

Dollar for dollar, lobbying is a better investment than campaign contributions, one reason business spends far more on the former than on the latter. In 1996, Philip Morris coughed up $19.6 million for lobbying programs versus $4.2 million for campaign donations (making it the leader in both categories). The same pattern holds true with other firms. For 1996, Georgia Pacific spent $8.9 million for lobbying and handed out $527,000 in political money. Corresponding figures for AT&T are $8.4 million versus $1.8 million; for Pfizer, $8.3 million versus $775,000; for Boeing, $5.2 million versus $770,000; for ARCO, $4.3 million versus $1.4 million; for Lockheed, $3.5 million versus $1.26 million; for Fedex, $3.1 million versus $1.9 million; for Dow Chemical $1.5 million versus $578,000.

In addition to in-house efforts, most big corporations spend lavishly for outside lobbying firms. Lockheed, for example, retains at least two dozen beltway lobby shops to supplement its own efforts, while Fedex has an additional 10 firms on retainer. In 1996, Boeing hired seven outside lobby shops for the sole purpose of pushing renewed Most Favored Nation trade status for China, paying them a combined total of at least $160,000 for their efforts.

While corporate lobbying has long been a major force in American politics, it has also been greatly transformed during the past few decades. Today, many efforts involve stealth lobbying-the chief tactic here is mobilizing fake "grassroots" campaigns-or with indirect methods, such as buying research from friendly think tanks in order to influence Congress and public opinion. All of this makes calculating corporate lobbying expenditures nearly impossible, though it's safe to say that lobbying has now become a multi-billion dollar-per-year industry. No one can say whether the figure of $10 million dollars a day in this book's title is accurate. But the trend would suggest it will soon be a very significant understatement-even if weekends and holidays are included.

When you consider the enormous benefits bestowed on Corporate America by the White House and Congress, the big sums companies spend to win favors are revealed as chump change. Lockheed's combined expenditures on lobbying and campaign contributions were about $5 million in 1996. That same year, Lockheed's lobbyists, with help from other arms makers, won approval for the creation of a new $15 billion government fund that will underwrite foreign weapon sales. In 1996, Microsoft spent less than $2 million for its combined lobbying and campaign contribution expenditures (the former accounted for more than two-thirds of that amount). The following year Congress awarded the company tax credits worth hundreds of millions of dollars for the sale of licenses to manufacture its software programs overseas.

Corporate lobbyists don't win every battle (though when they lose it's often because a competing corporate faction bought up even more lobbying firepower). It is indisputable, though, that corporate citizens who retain lobbyists have an enormous advantage in Washington over the regular ones who merely vote. Tommy Boggs, perhaps Washington's best known influence peddler, charges $550 per hour for his services. That's a drop in the bucket to Philip Morris, but Boggs' rate would eat up the average salary earner's entire annual income after a mere 43 hours of lobbying activity.

That lobbying has corrupted the political system is no secret. During his 1992 presidential campaign, Bill Clinton promised to "break the stranglehold the special interests have on our elections and the lobbyists have on our government." Such promises (like many others the president made) were forgotten as soon as the election votes were counted. Clinton picked Vernon Jordan, a top lobbyist and one of Washington's consummate political insiders, to head his presidential transition team. Among those selected for top administration jobs were Ron Brown, a former colleague of Tommy Boggs at the firm of Patton Boggs; Mickey Kantor of the powerhouse firm Manatt, Phelps, & Phillips; and Howard Paster, a former lobbyist for oil companies, banks and weapons makers.

A more recent display of the administration's open door policy to lobbyists came with the White House coffee klatsches. Examine the list of the roughly 1,500 people who attended the affairs and one finds that lobbyists were among the most heavily represented.

Republicans criticize Clinton for his coziness with special interests, but they maintain the same intimate relationships with corporate lobbyists. After winning control of Congress in 1994, the GOP House leadership met weekly with "The Thursday Group," a pack of lobbyists and activists who helped plot legislative and media strategy on the Contract With America. Included in this elite troupe were hired guns representing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Federation of Independent Business, and Americans for Tax Reform.

Washington on Ten Million Dollars A Day tells how monied interests use lobbyists to achieve their goals in Washington, and why no one in the capital seems to want to do anything to change the system. It's also about the woeful ethical standards of Washington lobbyists, most whom will represent any client, from a corporate criminal to a foreign despot, as long as the bills get paid on time.

Fundamentally, though, Washington on Ten Million Dollars A Day is about corporate power and the destruction of American democracy. . .

Product Details

• Hardcover: 251 pages
• Publisher: Common Courage Press; First Printing edition (July 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1567511376
• ISBN-13: 978-1567511376
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #795,635 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Inside the Corrupt Heart of the Beltway, April 20, 1998

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[e-mail] (Oregon City, Oregon) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Washington on $10 Million A Day: How Lobbyists Plunder the Nation (Hardcover)

Yes, it truly is the age of retail politics. And Ken Silverstein's new expose, Washington on $10 Million a Day, shows the high price that must be paid to the lobbyists of K Street to get troubled corporations and Third World dictators out their various jams. Silvertein introduces us to the likes of Tommy Hale Boggs, the brother of ABC news diva Cokie Roberts, who charges $500 an hour to help oil companies boot Indians off potential drilling sites, bail out the interest of big banks, vouch for the character of butchers like Baby Doc Duvalier and tirelessly tread on his intimate relationship with President Bill. Then there's the noxious Edward von Kloberg, the man who fell for a Spy Magazine spoof when he indicated he would be willing to represent the interests of a German neo-Nazi group. Among van Kloberg's other clients: Saddam Hussein and Romanian thug Nicolae Ceausescu. With this new book, Silverstein goes right to the corrupt heart of the Beltway, where forgiveness for almost any crime against humanity is for sale at the right price. Silverstein is one of the nation's finest investigative reporters and this book proves he is also one of the funniest. Jeffrey St. Clair

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Certain to Provoke Outrage, May 23, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Washington on $10 Million A Day: How Lobbyists Plunder the Nation (Hardcover)

Ken Silverstein is the co-editor of the newsletter Counterpunch and one of the best investigative journalists in the US. In this book he exposes some of the ways in which corporate money and lobbying corrupt our political process and make sure that public policy serves corporate interests, not our own. A pair of examples will illustrate. In one particularly telling account, Silverstein reveals how Philip Morris connived to set up a phony public interest group called Contributions Watch, the purpose of which was to smear trial lawyers as "the most powerful special interest group" in the country. In another section, he describes various types of "astroturf" lobbying activities, where corporations create phony "grassroots" groups to provide cover for their interests.

Much of the book is based on reporting Silverstein did for Counterpunch. Given Silverstein's talents, one wonders why he is working for a small-circulation newsletter. Surely our major newspapers have need for investigative journalists of his talents. But then one remembers that the big papers are themselves corporate owned, and unlikely to want to shed too much light on the misdeeds of large corporations or the excesses of unrestrained monopoly capitalism.

The one flaw I can find with the book is the absence of any detailed notes on Silverstein's sources.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Enough to be disgusting, May 29, 2009

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Reviewer (Near Columbus, OH United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Washington on $10 Million A Day: How Lobbyists Plunder the Nation (Hardcover)

Probably like a lot of readers I put this book down after reading the last page and sighed with a feeling of hopelessness, wondering if there was nothing the average citizen could do other than commit to running for office to make a difference. Silverstein takes the reader through page after page of lobbyist activity that is brutally intense, and after page 100 of the endless assault on conventional perception of law, it might make the reader a bit dizzy. I found it exhausting to read.

There are two drawbacks to this book; one (kind of) major and another minor thing. The major thing is that Silverstein's experiment as a fake lobbyist only lasts the first few pages. I was eager to read about how he infiltrated the network and found the dirtiest of the bunch, and I was hoping this book would be the ultimate reveal of their ugly practices. However, his brave adventure as a poseur director of a public action committee is brief. I suppose it would be difficult to hold up that act for long. The rest of the book is filled with in depth research on lobbyist activity, much of it lacking thorough citation that could back up some of the claims. The validity of the information would be more clear with direct citation, and I wonder about some of the guilt-by-association claims. The minor beef with the book is that Silverstein doesn't have a whole lot to offer on how to better keep K St. in line, even though the last chapter is titled like he will tell us how to do just that. This is a minor beef because nobody has a really good solution for that, so we can't expect Silverstein to save us by himself.

And just as a caveat, these examples are given to reinforce the argument that lobbying is bad. There are likely many lobbyists who are in the profession because they genuinely want to do something good. In many cases, the act of lobbying for a good cause is likely a good cause in itself. Sometimes the only way to fight the machine is to become a part of it. I'm sure many people can relate to that.

However, what Silverstein does exceptionally well in this book is explain - in great detail and through many examples - how lobbying works, who a lobbyist is, and how they came to be in the profession. The book was written in the 1990s so some of the examples are out of date, however it is really interesting to see how some of the hot topics of the last decade are again relevant in these days. The lobbyist machine is alive and well. So, if you've read the book or you are going to read it, ask yourself this (as I have): what can we do about this? How does this affect my government? What can I do as a citizen? I can't answer these questions for you: it's up to you.