js7a's Journal: Washington Lobbyists Numbers, Fees Both Doubled Since 2000

Kevin Drum writes about Jeff Birnbaum's Washington Post article:

The number of registered lobbyists in Washington has more than doubled since 2000 to more than 34,750 while the amount that lobbyists charge their new clients has increased by as much as 100 percent.

...."There's unlimited business out there for us," said Robert L. Livingston, a Republican former chairman of the House Appropriations Committee and now president of a thriving six-year-old lobbying firm. "Companies need lobbying help."

Attention Republicans: Your core values are all talk and no follow-through. Please look in the mirror and ask yourself, "Do I want to be in the party which has doubled the number of lobbyists and the fees they each take home in only five years? Is that the kind of party I can support?"

Hidden assertions

[smittyoneeach]

The hidden assertions are that
a) the number/economic value of lobbyists prior to 2000 was OK
b) the increase benefits the Republicans
c) the increase, if any, would've been tangibly less under a Democratic regime
d) the increase is unnatural
I'm all for some vague, drastic gesture to reset the political decay clock, but, as with terrorism, we want to avoid becoming the problem in the process of dealing with it.

Re:Cluestick Rolls 1d20 Against Republican Party

[smittyoneeach]

Republican figureheads and politicians aren't "conservative". They're just self-interested, greedy twats with a bully pulpit. I'm getting tired of this idiot 51% that doesn't seem to get that.

At what point did you think I was defending the Republicans? My overall disgust for the two parties runs about even, although, maybe I'm more disgusted with the Republicans for hypocritically claiming a higher standard.
However, in the Age of Unchecked Speculation, the idiot 51% who make noise about stuff like the