Pre-Owned Washington on $10 Million a Day: How Lobbyists Plunder the Nation (Hardcover) 1567511376 9781567511376

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