Good writeup in a 'sane' conservative publication.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/a...in-luxury/


The perfect storm—hundreds of billions in federal procurement dollars flooding into the area after 9/11, along with the easing of corporate campaign fundraising thanks to the now infamous Citizens United decision—has deepened the trough for lawyers, lobbyists, consultants, developers and contractors.

“The federal government is a $3.6 trillion beast in the district’s backyard that keeps the lights burning and the paychecks printing from government office buildings on Capitol Hill down along the Dulles Toll Road to the tech consulting firms in Virginia,” wrote Derek Thompson in The Atlantic in 2011, when the area was growing at three times the rate of the rest of the country in its post-recession years.

“Uncle Sam directly employs one-sixth of the district’s workforce and indirectly pays for much more.” It is the “much more” that Lofgren likes to focus on, pointing out that government workers, who might enjoy more job security and pensions, actually have a cap on annual salaries and benefits. It’s the private class that has remade the landscape, the worst characterized by “the K Street lawyers, political consultants, Beltway fixers and war on terrorism profiteers who run a permanent shadow government in the nation’s capital,” he writes.

Corruption seeks power. The more power we give to government, the more corrupt it will become.

When something like the top three counties in the US, and 7 of the top 12, in household income are in the DC area, someone is obviously getting ripped off, and that someone is the taxpayer.

The private enterprise (lobbyists, lawyers, consultants, defense contractors) in DC is the upper echelon of the financial gene pool in the district. It's amazing how much money is filtered through these people. The gov't may have caps on public employees, but what they should have caps on....is contracts. There is just no limit. Ask Obama and our deficit, they'll tell you.

(04-28-2016 01:13 AM)Pyrizzo Wrote:  The private enterprise (lobbyists, lawyers, consultants, defense contractors) in DC is the upper echelon of the financial gene pool in the district. It's amazing how much money is filtered through these people. The gov't may have caps on public employees, but what they should have caps on....is contracts. There is just no limit. Ask Obama and our deficit, they'll tell you.

Yes.

(04-28-2016 01:13 AM)Pyrizzo Wrote:  The private enterprise (lobbyists, lawyers, consultants, defense contractors) in DC is the upper echelon of the financial gene pool in the district. It's amazing how much money is filtered through these people. The gov't may have caps on public employees, but what they should have caps on....is contracts. There is just no limit. Ask Obama and our deficit, they'll tell you.

There are more limits on contracts than you can imagine. And if you took them out it would cost a lot more for the government to do the work. Much ignorance in your post.

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It circles back to term limits then, doesn't it?

I'm starting to wonder if the so-called corporate and union contributions as well as the PACs are not a sh!t deal for regular people in the end. It seems like the politicians are more concerned with enriching their friends and themselves under the auspices of free speech.