Dirty Money?

Dirty Money?

You know, there is a lot of trouble in our capitol when it comes to our representatives, of both parties, taking money from lobbyists. Don’t get me wrong – lobbying has been a part of our traditions for as long as we have had a government. And it truly is one of the ways that private interests get requests in front of the government. But that doesn’t make the money issues – the abuse of money in these instances the right thing to do.

The latest “scandal” is Abramoff. It appears that the man, and his organization, gave money (a lot of it) to both sides of the aisle. But more than that, it appears that he also played a few tribes off against one another to line his own pockets.

The Democrats have tried to paint this problem as entirely a Republican issue. That is simply not the truth. If you look at the information provided by the Center for Responsive Politics on the opensecrets.org site, you will find that both parties are well represented (if I can use those words).

So the real question is not whether we should have lobbyists; it is not whether they should have access to government representatives. What is comes down to is how do we make the process transparent so that people like Abramoff don’t have the opportunity any more.