Posted on February 12th, 2010 by Carlo Capomazza
A record $3.47 billion was spent on federal lobbyists in 2009, according to a new study by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. Ergo, fair now to say that Wall Street and K Street had a bull year, while Main Street suffered in recession.
The lobbyist boon times were tied to the legislative debates of the day: health care reform, financial reform and energy policy.
Still, 2009 looks not greatly different from 2008. There was about a 5% total increase in spending between the two years. But most of that increase occurred in the 4th quarter. And in the 4th quarter of 2008 there were those two mega events, financial crisis and the presidential election, likely tamping down spending. For example, the report finds that spending in the 2009 3rd quarter was up 3% compared to a 16% rise in the 4th quarter.
Nevertheless, it exhibits how disconnected the worlds of Wall Street and K Street are from the larger American experience. Both industries earned record profits the same year foreclosures shattered previous records.
Notably, with health care reform atop the 2009 legislative debate, the report found that federal lobbying expenditures for the pharmaceutical and health products industry were larger than any single industry ever. Health care lobby’s total 2009 bill: $266.8 million. Bloomberg reported last August that there were 3,300 health care lobbyists working Congress – six lobbyists for each of the 535 House and Senate lawmakers.
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Posted on January 22nd, 2010 by Carlo Capomazza
Nothing bites like mockery.
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Posted on January 20th, 2010 by Carlo Capomazza
Heads up… California needs money, so pay attention to the rules of the road!
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Posted on January 14th, 2010 by Carlo Capomazza
Who REALLY has your back? The question is of obvious importance but most of us have no clue as to the answer.
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Posted on January 11th, 2010 by Carlo Capomazza
By WeHo News Staff, West Hollywood, California (January 11, 2009) Worth magazine has selected Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute as one of the United States’ top 25 hospitals for cardiac bypass surgery. The list, compiled for the magazine by healthcare research firm Castle Connolly, appears in the December/January issue. Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute is one of only three hospitals on the West Coast included on the list.
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Posted on September 6th, 2009 by Carlo Capomazza
The post in which we wrote last month about a possible tax credit for pets received quite a number of comments — some for and some against the idea. Whether the proposed law has a chance on Capitol Hill or not has yet to be seen. However, the amount of responses we got from the [...]
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Posted on August 19th, 2009 by Carlo Capomazza
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Quality of life means being healthy, wealthy and wise for it all. But when we get sick many homeowners try to pull money out of our homes on occasion which is hard to do today and they often go bankrupt from medical bills. Regulation or reform is needed and there are lots of [...]
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Posted on April 27th, 2009 by Carlo Capomazza
Image by Getty Images via Daylife
American health officials on Sunday declared a public health
emergency over increasing cases of swine flu, saying that
they had confirmed 20 cases of the disease in the United
States and expected to see more as investigators fan out to
track down the path of the outbreak.
Although officials said that most of the cases [...]
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