Planet Open Government Open Source Hacking

TSA Nominee Robert Harding's Politics, New Massa Mess and More in Capital Eye Opener: March 10

2010-03-11T13:43:44+00:00

Your daily dose of news and tidbits from the world of money in politics:

TRANSPORTATION SECURITY CHIEF NOMINEE NO STRANGER TO LOBBYING, POLITICAL DONATIONS: President Barack Obama's nominee to lead the Transportation Security Administration, retired Army Maj. Gen. Robert A. Harding, recently ran a defense consulting company that lobbied the federal government a bit last decade. Harding Securities Associates reported spending $10,000 in 2005 to lobby the U.S. House and U.S. Senate on a defense bill, our research indicates. Harding made at least one federal campaign contribution while running his firm, giving $1,500 to U.S. Sen. Mark Warner's campaign in 2008. A man named Robert Harding, listing the same city and zip code as the retired general, also made a $1,000 donation in September to Louis Douglass Huddleston, a Republican and former Army colonel who's running for Congress in North Carolina. It couldn't be immediately confirmed if the two Robert Hardings are indeed the same man. Harding, the general, also served on Obama's presidential transition team.

MORE MASSA MESS: Last week, Eric Massa was a relatively unknown Democratic congressman from Upstate New York. This week, he resigned his seat. He acknowledged groping and engaging in tickle fights and an "orgy" with male staffers who, with a tip to sci-fi series Battlestar Galactica, he said he'd like to start "fracking." And last night, he told Fox News' Glenn Beck about fighting -- in the nude -- with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel while the men showered at a gym. (The White House denies this.) Until Massa morphed from freshman back-bencher to nationally-televised disaster, he had been one of the Democrat's fund-raising success stories, winning a seat in a decidedly Republican district and in doing so, raising significantly more campaign cash than the average House seat victor. Curiously, none of these folks were among Massa's donors. See Beck's interview with Massa below:

CRP, IN THE NEWS: Bloomberg's Jonathan D. Salant and Phil Mattingly write about how payday loan companies could get a pass from proposed congressional regulations on the nation's financial industry. Standing to benefit from this? Payday companies and their executives who have made handsome campaign contributions to Senate members, Salant and Mattingly write, citing our research ... Other journalists noting our work in the past day include Jen DiMascio at Politico, Chisun Lee at ProPublica, Arthur Delaney at the Huffington Post, Silla Brush at The Hill, Caroline Baum at Bloomberg and Jim McElhatton at NewsMax.com.

Have a news tip or link to pass along? We want to hear from you! E-mail us at press@crp.org.

Introducing the Cycle of Transparency

2010-03-11T01:39:52+00:00

Government transparency is that rarest of political phenomena — a great idea with support across the political spectrum and popularity among the public. Yet, here we are in the 21st century with every tool we would need to make government more transparent and accountable, and still we are operating with a government that often behaves as it did in the 19th century.

So, transparent government is a good thing, but we do not yet have one. Now what?

It’s clear that there is a breakdown between conceptual support for the idea of government transparency and enacting the changes necessary to make it so. There is fear and resistance to change inside government that requires cultural, political, and attitude adjustments. And there’s a large gap between the good intentions of citizens and watchdog groups and think tanks and reporters, and translating those good intentions into effective results. Many people want to act, but they rarely know how or where to begin.

For many, the concept of transparency still simply feels too vague to get behind in a meaningful way. People strongly support transparency in theory, but don’t know what they would need to do, or how they would need to think, to create the “open, transparent government” we talk about.

We’ve grappled with these challenges at Sunlight since our founding four years ago, and have been thinking about it with increased urgency over the last year in particular. How do we connect all the necessary parties and resources, and how do we put them together and act on them in the right way to actually make government more open and transparent?

Perhaps even more challenging: how do we explain it to people in a way that helps them know where they fit?

Now, the pieces are falling into place.

We know that at the heart of the open, transparent government we seek is ‘open’ government data that is available online and in real-time.

Government information should be as accessible to us as information about the weather, sports scores or knowing what’s going on in the stock market — and we need it to be this way so we can both hold government accountable and create new enterprise with what is made available to us.

In order to reach our vision of an open government – or an online, real-time government – we also know there are a number of “things” that must occur – and not just occur once, but continue to happen over time and continuously reinforce each other along the way.

This “Cycle of Transparency” demonstrates, in one image, the specific actions and the variety of actors that need to work together to create the open, transparent government we seek. We hope this graphic can be a useful tool in thinking about how to make city, state, federal, and even international governments more transparent.

Each type of actor and action complements the others in the Cycle to make every other element easier, or even possible at all. Of great importance is that just about anyone – from hardcore Internet developers to academics to government staff to reporters to activists – has a place in it.

One of the first places we often start in talking about transparency is in the crafting of policies that require the release of data from government. While no one piece of this Cycle is “first” or more important than others, the legislative component is a useful starting point. (Mostly because it’s the first one we wrote down.)

Lawmakers, lobbyists and think tanks (as well as citizens) all play a role in articulating new transparency policies and pushing them through the twists and turns of government processes. Those policies must adhere to core principles of openness, such as making sure government data is “raw,” that it is complete, or that it is searchable (in total, there are nine of these openness principles that government data should adhere to).

These principles aren’t things that government is accustomed to just yet, so the advocacy process is pretty difficult, and the subsequent “gap” between writing new legislation and actually getting legislation passed is more like a “chasm.”

One of the beautiful aspects of open government, however, is that while laws are written (and should be passed) to require the release of government data, Congress, federal agencies, states and cities can – in most cases – become more open and transparent without new laws.

Sidenote: A great example of “enacting without law” is that no law has been passed requiring all federal legislation to be available online for 72 hours before it is debated by Congress. Yet in 2009, Congress showed again and again that it could post bills online for three days before debate without the law requiring that action. Similarly, the “Open Government Directive,” released in a memo by the White House, has made all kinds of new government data available without laws to require it. (Though, it would be ideal if Congress codified the Directive into law to give it a lasting impact.)

Once data is released, government agencies (such as the Department of Energy or Transportation) and web developers anywhere can build the necessary technology to organize the data and make it usable. Federal repositories like Data.gov or Sunlight’s National Data Catalog are great examples of this type of public/private foundation building.

In the way of analogy, one way to think about this entire process is that it turns government into a type of public data wholesaler through which the public can build retail outlets.

With data being made easily accessible, journalists and bloggers can begin to dig into it, mix it up, identify relevant information and give the data context. As that critical context is provided, citizens absorb it and spread the information to others – both online and face-to-face – and make the data actionable.

Ultimately, informed citizen action creates greater public awareness; citizens become more effective, responsible advocates; holding government accountable becomes informed by data rather than inside-the-Beltway pundits, and better decisions can be made for our democracy.

As each element of the Cycle of Transparency moves forward concurrently, bringing about the changes we need to create a more transparent government, we also identify new needs.

At the end of the day, the process that the Cycle of Transparency describes is about creating a government more deserving of our trust, and ultimately, a government that allows its citizens to fully participate and hold government accountable as our Founders intended.

House Votes to Cancel Haiti's Debt

2010-03-10T19:41:00+00:00

On voice vote, the House of Representatives this afternoon passed a bill that would put pressure on the big international financial institutions to completely cancel all of Haiti’s debt so that the country can use what resources it has for rebuilding from the earthquake they suffered in January, 2009.

The bill is H.R. 4573, sponsored by Rep. Maxine Waters [D, CA-35] and co-sponsored by 69 other lawmakers, mostly Democrats. According to the official title, it would “direct the Secretary of the Treasury to instruct the United States Executive Directors at the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, and other multilateral development institutions to use the voice, vote, and influence of the United States to cancel immediately and completely Haiti’s debts to such institutions.”

Haiti is to poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Their entire GDP is around $8.5 billion, and according to the text of the bill, they “owe a total of $709 million in debts to multilateral financial institutions, including $447 million to the Inter-American Development Bank, $165 million to the IMF, $39 million to the World Bank, and $58 million to the International Fund for Agricultural Development.” That’s a total of $1.4 billion.

Besides canceling that debt, the bill passed today calls on international financial institutions to “provide additional assistance … to Haiti in the form of grants so that Haiti does not accumulate additional debts.” And it calls on the U.S. Treasury Department to work on influencing other creditors to cancel any debt Haiti holds with them, like $167 million they owe to Venezuela and the $92 million they owe to Taiwan that the IMF reported in 2008.

The Senate passed a similar bill (S. 2961) on March 5th by unanimous consent. The two bills will have to be reconcilied, or one of the chambers will have to sign off on the other chamber’s version, before it can be signed into law by President Obama.

Image used under a Creative Commons license from AIDG.

Links at Noon

2010-03-10T17:32:33+00:00

1) Roll Call prints a classic headline: “Earmark Advocates Skeptical of Ban.” Who would have thought that?

2) Bailed-out firms are getting back in the lobbying game.

3) Rep. Jeff Flake is asking the House Ethics Committee why they didn’t interview anyone in their investigation into PMA Group earmarks that led to exoneration for all involved lawmakers.

4) We won’t have Ralph Reed to kick around again.

Congress Links

2010-03-10T16:28:00+00:00

While you wait for the Congressional Budget Office to score the revised health care plan, take a took at today’s roundup of interesting blog posts and articles:

The left is starting to turn on liberal stalwart Rep. Dennis Kucinich [D, OH-10] over his opposition to the Democratic health care reform package. Kucinich, who doesn’t believe the reform plan goes far enough, has promised to vote against it even if he is the deciding vote in the House. (Salon)
This surprisingly gripping account of a failed bid to develop tankers for the Air Force explains a lot about how Washington works. (Politico)
In a meeting with reporters today, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid [D, NV] promised to look at ways to reform the filibuster next year. Reid had previously opposed such reforms saying that 67 votes in the Senate were needed. (Ezra Klein)
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius continues to go after the health insurance industry. (The Washington Independent)
The tale of former Rep. Eric Massa [D, NY-29] grows even more sordid. (The Atlantic)
The Onion highlights a few overlooked alternative health care proposals floating around Congress. (The Onion)

Senate Approves Extension Of UI, COBRA Benefits Through 2010

2010-03-10T15:46:00+00:00

The Senate has just passed a $140 billion bill includes an extension for unemployment benefits through the end of the year, tax credits and billions in emergency aid to states.

One week after approving a 30-day extension of unemployment benefits (H.R.4691), the Senate today passed the American Workers, State, and Business Relief Act (H.R.4321), which provides a longer-term extension of those benefits. Specifically, the bill extends federal unemployment assistance through Dec. 31 and provides a 65 percent subsidy for COBRA health insurance premiums. The coverage is retroactive to Feb. 28.

Other provisions in the bill include:

A seven-month delay in Medicare cuts to doctors costing $7billion

$25 billion in federal dollars to help states prevent layoffs of public employees like teachers and police officers

$26 billion in tax credits to encourage things like research and development and alternative energy

The measure passed in a 62-36 vote, with six Republicans joining almost every Democrats in voting “yes.” The Senate voted 66-33 earlier today to break a Republican filibuster of the bill.

To compensate for part of the $140 billion price tag, the bill closes the “black liquor” tax credit for paper companies and further cracks down on tax shelters. These revenue-generating measure may spell trouble when the bill goes back to the House for approval as both of these ideas have already been incorporated into President Obama’ s health care plan.

For more information, check out my previous post on the subject here.

Sunshine Review presents most transparent websites with a Sunny Award

2010-03-10T15:22:03+00:00

The Best State and Local Government Websites For Transparency Recognized
Sunshine Review Names 39 “Sunny Award” Winners

Alexandria, VA—The best state and local government websites in America for transparency today received a “Sunny Award” from Sunshine Review, a pro transparency organization.

Award winners are among only 39 websites in America earning an “A” transparency grade from more than 5,000 analyzed. Sunshine Review’s “Transparency Checklist” analyzes websites for information about budgets, meetings, elected and administrative officials, permits and zoning, audits, contracts, lobbying, public records, and taxes. The “Checklist” measures what content is available on government websites against what should be provided.

“Sunny Award winners deserve recognition for making information available to citizens and for setting a transparency standard that all governments can, and should, meet,” said Mike Barnhart, President of Sunshine Review. “Access to information empowers every citizen to hold government officials accountable for the conduct of the public’s business and the spending of taxpayers’ money. Official accountability is the corner stone of self government and liberty.”

Sunshine Review is a non-profit organization dedicated to state and local government transparency. The Sunshine Review wiki collects and shares transparency information and uses a 10-point “Transparency Checklist” to evaluate the content of every state and more than 5,000 local government websites. Sunshine Review collaborates with individuals and organizations throughout America in the cause of an informed citizenry and an accountable government.

Since its inception in 2008, Sunshine Review has analyzed the websites of all 50 states, more than 3,140 counties, 805 cities, and 1,560 school districts.

Quantifying Data Quality

2010-03-10T14:46:28+00:00

You've already heard me complain about data quality -- how it's a bigger problem than most people realize, and a harder problem than many people hope. But let's not leave it there! Perfect datasets mostly exist in textbooks and computer simulations. We need to figure out what we can do with what we have. In this and other posts, I hope to give the developers in our community some idea of how they can deal with less-than-perfect data.

The first step is to figure out how bad things actually are. To do that, we'll use some simple statistics -- those of you with a strong stat background can skip to the next entry in your RSS reader (or better yet, correct my mistakes in comments).

The GAO provides a good example of how to tackle this kind of problem. They were asked to examine government spending on the nonprofit sector -- a process that ultimately led to this report (PDF). As you might imagine, there are a number of ways that federal dollars make their way to nonprofits, from loan guarantees to tax breaks to medicare payments to nonprofit hospitals. For the most part, each of these is tracked through a distinct system.

Let's confine our work to one of the systems that GAO examined: the Federal Award and Assistance Data System, or FAADS. Along with FPDS, this makes up one half of the data powering USASpending.gov. FAADS tracks grant payments (and some other things that we'll ignore for now). Let's just examine that question: how do we figure out how much federal grant money went to nonprofits?

First we should define the subset of FAADS that deals with the nonprofit sector. If we can do that, and there aren't any other problems, then we should be able to just sum up the records and figure out the totals. There's a fairly obvious way to do this: FAADS records have a "recipient type" multiple-choice field, and one of the possible values is "nonprofit". But of course it's not actually that simple: the full name for the value is "other nonprofit". The field's possible values also include "private higher education". If you take a quick look at some records with that value, you'll see that many of those educational institutions are nonprofits. Worse, a look at the "nonprofit" category shows some suspicious entries. It's worth taking a closer look at the reliability of the values entered into this field.

But we need to get beyond saying the data is "pretty good" or "kind of dodgy" or "really bad". It would be useful to come up with a quantified estimate of how reliable the field is. GAO did this by picking a random sample of records, then checking each one to see whether it was correctly classified. That gave them a precise answer about how good the classification was within the sample -- but what does the quality of the sample tell us about the quality of the larger dataset? To figure this out, GAO calculated the confidence interval of their result.

The idea is pretty simple. Let's say there's a big population out there, and you want to quantify some attribute of it. Unfortunately, it's not practical to examine that value for every member the population. Instead, you'll take a smaller sample of the population, finding the value of the attribute just for its members. How close will that value be to the real value you'd get if you did examine the entire population? It's impossible to say for sure, but thanks to the magic of the Central Limit Theorem, we can look at how erratic the sample's values are and get an estimate of just how good it is at representing the larger population.

You've probably run into confidence intervals before when reading about political polls. "Politician A has a 50% favorability rating, +/- 3 points!" This means that the pollsters are 95% confident that the real favorability rating -- the one they'd get if they asked every relevant person -- is between 47% and 53%. Why are they 95% sure of this, instead of 90% or 99%? Well, 95% is a natural number to use thanks to the properties of the normal distribution, but in truth it's a bit arbitrary -- it's just sort of the stat-industry standard (interestingly, this means that one out of every twenty statistically significant results will be specious, even if the experimenters made no mistakes -- something to keep in mind the next time you read a breathless account of some amazing just-published scientific discovery).

As you might imagine, for a given population there are a few factors that can be tweaked when evaluating the confidence interval: sample size, confidence level, and the width of the confidence interval. As already mentioned, that second term is generally held constant at 95%; but tradeoffs are often made between the other two. You can get a more precise confidence interval by increasing your sample size, for example -- but that usually costs time or money.

But let's get back to the nonprofit problem. The GAO took a random sample of records from the "nonprofit" category and a random sample of all the other records in FAADS. They then turned to whatever supplementary sources they could lay their hands on to figure out if the listed recipient for each record was actually a nonprofit -- they used the IRS Business Master File, the Census of Governments, the Higher Education Directory, and various other subject-specific guides to the nonprofits present within specific economic sectors.

There were three possible results to each examination for a recipient's true nonprofit status: it could be a nonprofit, or not a nonprofit, or the investigation could be inconclusive. After examining the samples, they had a percentage value attached to each of these outcomes, which represented each outcome's share of the sample.

Each of those values can then plugged into this formula:

Where p is the true share of the population that falls within the category (e.g. "is a nonprofit" or "uncertain"), n is the size of the sample, and the p with a hat (called "p-hat", pleasantly enough) is the observed proportion of the sample falling in the category.

Simple! There are a number of assumptions underlying this which hide the statistical machinery: the assumption of equivalence between the standard deviation of the population and that of the sample; the fact that we're after a 95% confidence level. But this is a pretty standard way of going about it, and it seems to be how GAO approached the problem. For the nonprofit category, they reported a confidence interval of (.60-.79), meaning that about 70% of the sample turned out to represent genuine nonprofits, and based upon this they could be 95% sure that the true proportion of nonprofits in the larger population fell between 60% and 79%. They did the same thing with educational institutions, testing how many were nonprofits, and found an interval of (.88-.98).

(Some of you might have noticed that this operation can work backwards: some simple algebra reveals that GAO investigated 89 records in order to get these figures. In fact, the report says that they examined 96. This discrepancy is no doubt partly the result of rounding errors, but it's also probably somewhat attributable to their use of a t distribution, a technique invented at the Guinness Brewery in 1908 to help make reliable predictions even when the sample size is pretty small. It's not worth getting into the specifics here, but the upshot is that we need to adjust that 1.96 value for low values of n.)

So what can we do with this knowledge? It's tempting to say, "Okay, we have a statistically justified range for how many of these records are correctly classified as nonprofits. Let's take the total dollars for that category, multiply it by the high and low end of the confidence interval, and get an estimated range for total grant spending going to nonprofits."

I wouldn't say this is a bad idea, exactly. Certainly this gets you closer to the truth than simply taking FAADS at its word. You ought to add in the weighted sum for the educational institution category too, of course. And you should probably do the same thing for all the other recipient categories, to see how many nonprofits have been miscoded into those buckets. And it would be a good idea to account for that "unknown" category, too -- the records that might or might not be nonprofits.

But even then, we're in dangerous territory if we assume we have an answer. Much of what you read about statistics will be prefaced with "for a random variable" -- when we can't satisfy that assumption, things kind of fall apart. For instance: what if the government is in the habit of giving differently-sized grants to nonprofit recipients versus other recipients? That's something we should test for before we just blindly weight the sum of all grants. Worse: what if we're missing some records from the population? None of the above calculation tells us anything about anything other than the data we have in hand.

In the end, GAO didn't pursue these lines of inquiry. Testing the nonprofit classification left things close enough for government work, as they say. Still, by examining the quality of that classification, GAO peeled back and refined one assumption, and in the process, arrived at a better estimate. Not a perfect one -- there are still a number of assumptions being made here, and they're worth examining, too. But they did get an estimate of how useful one aspect of their data was, and that's a very good thing to know.

Financial Reform Bill Will Exempt Payday Loans

2010-03-10T14:24:00+00:00

Some of the most absurd lending and borrowing happens in the payday loan industry. According to the Center for Responsible Lending (.pdf), the average payday loan borrower pays $800 for each $325 they borrow. That’s an absolutely absurd interest rate, but according to the New York Times, the senators who are designing financial reform legislation are going to include a special carve-out so the industry can keep on dealing in these abusive loans:

Under the proposal agreed to by Mr. Dodd and Mr. Corker, the new consumer agency could write rules for nonbank financial companies like payday lenders. It could enforce such rules against nonbank mortgage companies, mainly loan originators or servicers, but it would have to petition a body of regulators for authority over payday lenders and other nonbank financial companies.

Consumer advocates said that writing rules without the inherent power to enforce them would leave the agency toothless.

I’d say that’s pretty much the definition of toothless. They can make the rules, but they can’t enforce them.

The House version of financial reform legislation (H.R. 4173) contained no such carve-out — payday lenders, and other nonbank financial companies, like pawn shops, would be subject to the same consumer protection regulations as other businesses in the financial sector.

Why are these most usurious of lenders getting away so easily in financial reform legislation? Two reasons:

1) They are the only companies that will lend to people with bad credit histories. Since they hold peoples’ assets and future income as collateral, credit scores don’t matter to them. Without the service they provide, some people would have virtually no way of getting emergency loans.

2) They have been lobbying hard. Last Spring, the AP reported that the payday load industry has “deployed well-connected lobbyists and hefty sums of campaign cash to key lawmakers to save themselves”:

The payday lending industry’s trade association has spent more than $1 million annually for each of the last four years lobbying Congress, including $1.4 million last year, according to disclosures filed with Congress. It has beefed up its team of Washington hired guns to a dozen, including well-connected financial services lobbyists Tim Rupli and Wright Andrews, who each have firms bearing their names.

It also has stepped up its campaign giving in recent years, forming a political action committee that contributed more than $200,000 in 2007 and 2008, much of that to lawmakers who serve on the Senate Banking and House Financial Services committees, according to Federal Election Commission filings compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. Those committees have jurisdiction over the industry.

Individual payday lending companies including Cash America Inc. and Advance America Cash Advance, have also stepped up their political activities.

“As the Hill has become more interested in our industry, we have stepped up our efforts,” in Washington said Steven Schlein of the Community Financial Services Association, the trade group for payday lenders.

“Congress is beginning to realize that there aren’t other alternatives,” to payday lending, Schlein said.

A newer player representing Internet payday lenders — a growing segment of the market — also ramped up its lobbying and political giving efforts. The Online Lenders Alliance, formed in 2005, nearly quintupled, to $480,000, its lobbying expenditures from 2007 and 2008. It contributed $108,400 to candidates in advance of the 2008 elections compared to about $2,000 in the 2006 contests. Gutierrez was among the top House recipients, getting $4,600, while the top Senate recipient was Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., a Banking Committee member who got $6,900.

The group has also helped host several fundraisers for lawmakers with say over what happens to the industry, according to invitations collected by the Sunlight Foundation, which tracks political parties. Those included a fundraiser last year for Rep. Joe Baca, D-Calif., a Financial Services committee member. Dinner and a reception at the fundraiser at a Capitol Hill townhouse cost at least $1,000.

Image from Thomas Hawk used under a Creative Commons license.

Airport Funding Bill Grounded By Union Issue

2010-03-10T12:40:00+00:00

A measure that would provide billions to fund the Federal Aviation Administration and modernize airport infrastructure is being held up over a provision that would allow FedEx workers to unionize as easily as UPS workers.

The House last summer passed the FAA Reauthorization Act (H.R.915) that, among several things, would reauthorize funding for the FAA, provide $70 billion for airport infrastructure and update pilot training standards. The most controversial part the bill, however, is a provision that would make it easier for some FedEx employees to unionize.

Since FedEx was founded as an airline, its workers are governed by the 1926 Railway Labor Act, which as Business Week explains, “carries a difficult path to unionization that requires a national vote by every worker at a company, and doesn’t allow for organizing at a local, terminal-by-terminal level.” UPS workers, and most private sectors workers in general, are governed by the National Labor Relations Act, which presents workers with fewer obstacles should they want to form a union.

UPS, the Teamsters and other labor organizations support the provision but FedEx is pulling out all the stops to prevent it from becoming law. As part of a multi-million dollar campaign, FedEx is falsely claiming that the unionization provision amounts to an unfair government “bailout” of UPS. Regardless of how one feels about labor, the facts of the debate show that FedEx just doesn’t want their workers to have the same ability to unionize as employees at UPS and most private sector companies throughout the nation do.

A Senate version of the FAA Reauthorization Act (S.1451) has been stalled for months over this issue and it doesn’t even include the unionization provision.

Leading the charge against the bill in the Senate is the delegation from Tennessee: Sen. Bob Corker [R, TN] and Sen. Lamar Alexander [R, TN]. FedEx is headquartered in Tennessee and has been a major donor to both senators.

Corker and Alexander have placed a hold on the bill to ensure that the unionization provision is not included when the House and Senate bills are reconciled.

The FAA was last reauthorized in 2003 and a series of temporary extension measures have kept the agency from shutting down since then. Should this measure become law, funding for the agency would be secure until 2012.

Democrats Announce Corporate Earmarking Ban

2010-03-10T12:07:00+00:00

The long-standing congressional tradition of directing federal money to corporations in your state or district, often in exchange for campaign contributions, may be coming to an end. Well, at least in appropriations bills. Reuters reports:

Lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives will no longer be able to direct funds toward for-profit companies through the earmarking process, the House Appropriations Committee said on Wednesday.

The committee said it also would set up a special process to allow businesses to pitch their ideas directly to the Defense Department, which accounts for a large share of federal spending.

The ban won’t apply to universities and non-profit institutions. It also won’t apply to items in bills that aren’t technically appropriations earmarks, but function in much of the same way. For example, the narrowly-targeted items that were included in the Wall St. bailout bill, like the repeal of a tax on wooden arrows, or the porky items from the stimulus bill, woudn’t be banned. And unlike the earmarks in appropriations bills, which are subject to strict disclosure rules, it’s almost impossible to figure out who sponsored or is benefiting from the earmark-like items in non-appropriations bills.

Image used under CC license from johnmuk.

Wall St. Profiting From Stimulus Provision

2010-03-10T11:33:00+00:00

A couple weeks ago, as Congress was debating whether or not to reauthorize the “Buy America Bonds” program that was created in the stimulus bill to help struggling state and local government borrow money more cheaply and create new jobs, Goldman Sachs ran an ad in the print edition of Politico pushing for the reauthorization to pass.

That got some members of Congress thinking – just how much taxpayer money are the big bailout banks keeping as profit from dealing in these bonds?

The answer is now in (WSJ):

Wall Street firms have received fees exceeding $1 billion in less than a year selling “Build America Bonds” meant to spur jobs in struggling cities, often charging municipalities higher costs than for traditional bond deals. […]

The underwriting fees come as Wall Street continues to recover even as many municipalities remain in poor financial shape.

The Wall Street fees are “surprisingly high,” says Edward Prescott, a Nobel-prize winning economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis and a professor at Arizona State University.

The banks confirm charging higher Build America fees, but say the costs are coming down as the bonds become more popular. Bank officials say the higher fees are justified because they are working harder to sell the bonds to investors who wouldn’t traditionally buy municipal debt, such as pension funds, insurance companies and foreign investors.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is the top seller of Build America Bonds, with $9.79 billion in sales, according to research firm Thomson Reuters, followed closely by J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc., Barclays PLC, Bank of America’s Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley.

Talking at Open Up the City in Helsinki

2010-03-10T09:51:13+00:00

This Thursday (11th March) I’m speaking at the Forum Virium’s Open Up the City event in Helsinki.

This year their focus is on “open data, design, interfaces and innovation” and I’m speaking under the title “Open Data: What, Why, How?”. It looks like this will be a very interesting event and it’s also a chance to catch up with the very active open data people in Finland!

Update ideas coming from a brainstorming session at a Forum Virium workshop:

Slogan: open data for the read/write city
- Open data isn’t just about building a better “read” services and governance. It is about building better “write” services and institutions which support real participatory activity by citizens. To give a very simple and concrete example: open access to public transport timetable is great but I want want to be able to send back information (like the actual arrival time of that bus or train, how clean it was, whether the bus stop has moved …).
Top services to work on with open (local government) data: transport, spending, food, legislation/voting, education, health.
TBC

Complex Systems in the Social & Physical Sciences – By Bestiario [Repost]

2010-03-10T04:07:58+00:00

Passing the Health Care Bill Without Actually Voting on It

2010-03-10T02:00:00+00:00

As House Democrats struggle to round up the votes to pass the Senate health care bill (H.R.3590), they’re considering more and more obscure parliamentary rules to help them.

Politico reports:

Party leaders have discussed the possibility of using the House Rules Committee to avoid an actual vote on the Senate’s bill, according to leadership aides. They would do this by writing what’s called a “self-executing rule,” meaning the Senate bill would be attached to a package of fixes being negotiated between the two chambers — without an actual vote on the Senate’s legislation.

Under this scenario, the Senate bill would be automatically attached to the reconciliation package, if the House passes reconciliation. In other words, Bill A would just become part of Bill B if the House passes Bill B, and the Senate could then vote on a reconciliation package before sending it to the president. This allows House members to approve the broader measure without actually voting on it. […]

This would allow them to deal with the Senate bill without forcing their members to go on record in support of unpopular items, like the now-infamous Cornhusker Kickback or the so-called Louisiana Purchase, that could be used against them on the campaign trail in the fall.

The article notes that this is far from a done deal. “The same aides who confirmed this process was under discussion quickly noted that party leaders have not yet arrived at a final decision.” But let’s still take a look at what this procedure actually is. Here’s the definition provided by the Congressional Reserach Service (.pdf):

Definition of “Self-Executing” Rule. One of the newer types is called a “self-executing” rule; it embodies a “two-for-one” procedure. This means that when the House adopts a rule it also simultaneously agrees to dispose of a separate matter, which is specified in the rule itself. For instance, self-executing rules may stipulate that a discrete policy proposal is deemed to have passed the House and been incorporated in the bill to be taken up. The effect: neither in the House nor in the Committee of the Whole will lawmakers have an opportunity to amend or to vote separately on the “self-executed” provision. It was automatically agreed to when the House passed the rule. Rules of this sort contain customary, or “boilerplate,” language, such as: “The amendment printed in [section 2 of this resolution or in part 1 of the report of the Committee on Rules accompanying this resolution] shall be considered as adopted in the House and in the Committee of the Whole.”

Unlike the budget reconiliation process, this is getting firmly outside the teritory of standard congressional procedure. The Congressional Reserach Service notes that this procedure has typically been used to “expedite House action in disposing of Senate amendments to House-passed bills.” But it’s contained in the congressional rules, and, as CRS points out, in recent years it has been used more and more often to enact significant (and sometimes contentious) legislation.

On August 2, 1989, the House adopted a rule (H.Res. 221) that automatically incorporated into the text of the bill made in order for consideration a provision that prohibited smoking on domestic airline flights of two hours or less duration.

On March 19, 1996, the House adopted a rule (H.Res. 384) that incorporated a voluntary employee verification program — addressing the employment of illegal immigrants — into a committee substitute made in order as original text.

H.Res. 239, agreed to on September 24, 1997, automatically incorporated into the base bill a provision to block the use of statistical sampling for the 2000 census until federal courts had an opportunity to rule on its constitutionality.

A closed rule (H.Res. 303) on an IRS reform bill provided for automatic adoption of four amendments to the committee substitute made in order as original text. The rule was adopted on November 5, 1997, with bipartisan support.

On May 7, 1998, an intelligence authorization bill was made in order by H.Res. 420. This self-executing rule dropped a section from the intelligence measure that would have permitted the CIA to offer their employees an early-out retirement program.

On February 20, 2005, the House adopted H.Res. 75, which provided that a manager’s amendment dealing with immigration issues shall be considered as adopted in the House and in the Committee of the Whole and the bill (H.R. 418) [REAL ID Act], as amended, shall be considered as the original bill for purposes of amendment.

Since the partisanship of the procedure will come up over and over if it does end up getting used for health care reform, I’ll give the historical facts now. Of the 6 contemporary uses of the self-executing rule the CRS gives, only one of them was done by a session of Congress that controlled by the Democrats (101st session). The other five instances were c arried out by sessions that were controlled in both chambers by Republicans (104th, 105th and 109th).

Pfizer CEO Gets Raise for Behind Scenes Deals With White House

2010-03-09T23:21:27+00:00

The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.

Billy Tauzin was bounced from his perch as President and CEO of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) after the deals he helped strike with the White House and Sen. Max Baucus were stalled with the health care bill.

Jeff Kindler, the CEO of Pfizer, the nation’s largest drug company, got a 12.5% raise after he helped block drug reimportation and other cost cutting measures by striking a deal with the White House and Sen. Max Baucus. From the Pfizer statement:

During 2009, Mr. Kindler was actively involved, through both Pfizer and external organizations, in developing and advancing U.S. and global public policies that serve the overall interests of our Company and our shareholders, as well as doctors and patients. These efforts included constructive participation in the U.S. legislative process to advance Pfizer’s goals of achieving a more rational operating environment; improving Americans’ access to quality, affordable health care; preserving the doctor/patient relationship; and enhancing policies that promote innovation. Also, through both Pfizer and external organizations, he has sought to ensure the availability of safe medicines by opposing legislation that would allow for importation of prescription drugs that could jeopardize the integrity of the drug supply chain in the U.S.

For the full story on the deal struck between the pharmaceutical companies and the White House see this article.

(hat tip to Timothy Carney at the Washington Examiner.)

Should Illinois be worried about new FOIA proposals?

2010-03-09T23:04:27+00:00

In January, Illinois passed a law that improved its FOIA, which needed improvements after allegations that secrecy was the rule in Illinois, openness the exception. The most conspicuous case was the University of Illinois not releasing information to the Chicago Tribune, making the Tribune sue the university for the information. Supported by the Attorney General, the law made it so that governments had 5 days to respond to a request and would penalize those that failed to do so.

But the improvements did not come without a fight with some law makers creating a weaker alternative to the new law. That effort has begun again: State Senator John Millner is sponsoring a plan that would significantly weaken the new FOIA in Illinois, according to critics. His proposal would:

-Broaden protections against disclosing personnel and disciplinary information.
-Cut down public access to law enforcement records if the information could hurt another department’s investigation
-Relieve government bodies from having to pay legal fees for successful lawsuits against them.

A proposal introduced by another state senator, Senator William Haine, would exempt law enforcement personnel’s performance evaluations from disclosure, as well. Lawmakers and Gov. Pat Quinn have already approved exempting teacher evaluations from disclosure.

The Illinois attorney general’s office, which was was strongly vocal about its support for the new law, said it’s too soon to change it.

But the new FOIA has critics on the House side, too. State Representative Sidney Mathias is working with the Illinois Municipal League, which opposed last year’s changes to access laws and is a taxpayer-funded lobbying association, to change requirements that may be “too burdensome,” especially requiring government bodies to reply to requests within five business days. He also would consider doing away with a provision that requires local governments to pay attorney fees if someone sues to get information and a court rules that information should be turned over, a similarity to Millner’s proposed changes.

According to Representative Mathias, its in citizens’ interest to place limits on the requirements of government to meet this law. “Who ultimately pays that? It’s the residents. So there’s got to be reasonable limitations on these requests, also.”

Still, it’s one thing to have frivolous spending going on in Illinois, and another thing to have spending that is justifiable. As far as protecting investigation and police officers, this is also an important priority. However, the presumption should be openness, and a denial of information must be justified. While a realistic law that doesn’t overly burden officials is important, the emphasis should be on the citizens and on providing information in a way that is beneficial to them, not on making life easy for public officials.

Treasury Dept. Opposes Fed Transparency

2010-03-09T22:43:00+00:00

You would think the White House would get behind a proposal that is sponsored by a full 3/4ths of the House of Representatives, but they’re not.

Ryan Grim of Huffington Post reported today from a briefing with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and a couple Treasury officials that they are “intensely opposed” to the Ron Paul-Alan Grayson bill to require a full audit of the Federal Reserve. The bill has already passed the House as a part of the broader financial reform package (H.R.4173) and it is immensely popular with the public as well as Members of Congress — the stand-alone version of it has 317 co-sponsors in the House and 33 sponsors in the Senate. According to sponsorship statistics, it’s the most popular bill in Congress right now.

According to Grim, under the ground rules of today’s briefing, “the officials could be paraphrased but not quoted, and the paraphrase could not be connected to a specific official.” So, I’ll quote a good portion of what Grim paraphrased from teh briefing:

The Treasury Department is vigorously opposed to a House-passed measure that would open the Federal Reserve to an audit by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a senior Treasury official said Monday. Instead, the official said, the Treasury prefers a substitute offered by Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.), and would like to see it enacted as part of the Senate bill.

The Watt measure, however, while claiming to increase transparency, actually puts new restrictions on the GAO’s ability to perform an audit.

[…]

Asked whether he supports the House-passed measure to open the Fed to an audit, which was cosponsored by Reps. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) and Ron Paul (R-Texas), a senior Treasury official said he is intensely opposed to it.

The official said the measure would undermine the independence of monetary policy and could restrict the ability of the Fed to act in times of crisis. He said that the GAO already has audit authority and that the chairman routinely testifies before Congress.

He said he supports full disclosure when it comes to the scale of Fed lending and wouldn’t draw a bright line around auditing certain activities, but wants to make sure it maintained its independence.

A lack of independence, he said, could lead to inflation and otherwise undermine progressive priorities.

He said, however, that he would be supportive of efforts that would help the Fed earn back some of the credibility it has lost over the past few years.

HuffPost asked if central bank liquidity swaps — foreign currency trades worth hundreds of billions of dollars — should be subject to an audit. The official said that the identity of the countries that received dollars was made public as was the amount each got. It worked well and was good policy, he said, and opening it to audit could undermine its future effectiveness.

The purpose of the swaps, he said, was to make sure that foreign central banks had enough dollars to meet their obligations. The effort kept interest rates low, he said.

No word yet as to whether President Obama would veto the financial reform bill if Congress sends it to him with the Paul-Grayson Fed transparency bill included. But we know that he tends to defer to Geithner on financial policy matters, so I would not be surprised if such a veto threat is eventually issued.

Lobbyists and White House Visitors

2010-03-09T21:02:03+00:00

Recently and continuously, the White House has been releasing the "White House Visitor Logs," showing America who is coming in to meet with the President and his staff. At the same time, the Center for Responsive Politics releases cleaned up data on lobbyist filings. We thought it'd be interesting to find the intersect between the names in both sets of data.

Below, you'll find our results along relevant information from both sets of data. Now-- this is important: just because the names match doesn't mean they're the same person. Because the White House doesn't release any other form of identity information besides the name, we're unable to tell whether or not the name in one dataset actually refers to the same person in the other. John Adams in one dataset may be a different John Adams in another.

This is intended to be a starting point for journalists and citizen investigators, but isn't a reliable list of lobbyists who've been to the White House. Instead, it is a list of names of lobbyists who share names with people who have been to the White House and could be the same person. Whether they are or not is up to you to figure out.

Here's the data for your perusal:

White House Visitor Logs + Lobbyists

Thanks to the Center for Responsive Politics for making their data available for us to do this match.

The Blanche Lincoln Energy & Climate Complex

2010-03-09T18:10:25+00:00

Sen. Blanche Lincoln has put herself front and center in opposing efforts by her party’s leadership to pass or implement comprehensive caps on carbon emissions in the United States. She opposes the proposed cap and trade legislation that passed the House of Representatives and has been touted by President Barack Obama and senators John Kerry, Lindsay Graham and Joe Lieberman. Similarly, she has signed on to legislation that would block the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from implementing their own regulations to cap carbon emissions should cap and trade legislation fail to pass Congress. In this effort she is aided by a coterie of former staffers who currently lobby for a variety of interests seeking to weaken or derail carbon capping whether through legislation or the EPA’s rule-making authority.

Six of Lincoln’s former staffers currently lobby for interests invested in influencing carbon capping legislation. These interests include oil & gas trade groups, agriculutural companies, the airplane industry and biofuel and bioenergy firms. As chair of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Lincoln holds a powerful position to influence carbon capping legislation and she has made no secret of her desire to block the legislation.

(For a full visualization of Sen. Blanche Lincoln’s former staffers lobbying for the energy and climate industries click here or the image to the right.)

The most influential of Lincoln’s former staffers is Kelly Bingel, a lobbyist for Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti. Bingel is a former chief of staff to Lincoln and has been called “Sen. Lincoln’s alter ego.” Bingel’s clients include two incredibly powerful organizations opposed to carbon capping: the American Petroleum Institute (API), the lead trade group for the oil industry, and Koch Industries, one of the largest oil manufacturing, trading and investment companies in the country. David Koch, one of the two owners of Koch Industries, is a big contributor to conservative movement organizations and is an outspoken opponent of cap and trade legislation. Koch has invested millions in various conservative organizations that have led lobbying and grassroots stimulation efforts to get people to advocate to their lawmakers to oppose cap and trade legislation. API spent $7.32 million on lobbying last year, almost double what it spent in 2008. API states that any carbon capping legislation or regulations will cost the industry jobs and increase taxes.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Lincoln is currently the number one recipient of campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry from 2005 to 2010. She has received, through her campaign committee and her leadership political action committee (PAC),$309,500 from the industry.

Another former staffer to Lincoln, Ben Noble, lobbies for organizations opposed to caborn capping efforts including a variety of agricultural interests. Agricultural companies and trade groups have a major stake in cap and trade legislation as it moves through Congress. According to the EPA, agriculture accounts for 6 percent of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. The industry is seeking to avoid carbon capping regulation in cap and trade legislation or through EPA regulation.

One of Noble’s clients, the USA Rice Federation, opposes cap and trade legislation and recently praised Lincoln for her stance against the legislation, “We applaud Chairman Lincoln for putting the American economy and jobs first in this debate. While there are a number of questions surrounding the issue of climate change, there is absolutely no question about the severe impact that pending legislation and regulation would have on our economy and jobs.”

Lincoln is the top recipient of campaign contributions from a variety of agricultural industries including agricultural services, crop producers, food processors and meat processors and plants. Since 2005, Lincoln has received $789,372 from the agribusiness sector.

Both Bingel and Noble also represent organizations generally supportive of cap and trade legislation, so long as it contains language that allows them to maximize their profits under the new system. Bingel represents the electrical utility trade group the Electric Edison Institute (EEI). EEI, which includes members who have received specific benefits in the House-passed cap and trade legislation, sees the legislation as an openning into new markets with high potential to increase their share of energy distribution.

Noble represents the massive bio-tech, agribusiness firm Monsanto. Monsanto seeks to gain profits from a cap and trade system by getting farms and agribusiness to switch to a “no-till” method of farming. The “no-till” method would require farmers to purchase herbicides and seeds made by Monsanto. The lobbying effort by Monsanto is detailed in Tom Philpott’s explanation at Grist.

Last week, Lincoln released her first campaign advertisement in the uphill battle to retain her Senate seat. The ad touts her continued opposition to the passage of cap and trade legislation. This continues her statement from last year that cap and trade is a “complete non-starter.”

Foreign Subsidiaries Get Political, Evan Bayh for 'Fair Elections' and More in Capital Eye Opener: March 9

2010-03-09T17:18:41+00:00

Your daily dose of news and tidbits from the world of money in politics:

LET US BE HEARD: The Organization for International Investment, a trade association representing U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies, has hired a Democratic lawyer to lobby against legislation that would potentially ban its members' money from U.S. politics. Kevin Bogardus of The Hill reports that the organization hired Joseph Birkenstock, of Caplin & Drysdale, who once served as chief counsel to the Democratic National Committee. The move is in response to the legislative push, led by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), to counteract the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission in part by banning political money from companies that are deemed to be “foreign interests." This includes companies that are more than 20 percent foreign-owned, seat a majority of non-U.S. citizens on the board of directors or for whom decision-making about political activity falls under the purview of a foreign entity. Nancy McLernon, the president and chief executive officer of the organization, tells The Hill of her concern that U.S. subsidiaries are being unfairly targeted in the proposed legislation. Legislators' broad definition of foreign business could result in thousands of companies being banned from engaging in political activity, notes Clement Tan at the Los Angeles Times. Many members of the organization, such as Anheuser-Busch or T-Mobile USA, can be found in the Center for Responsive Politics' political action committees and lobbying databases. In 2008, PACs of companies more than 50 percent foreign-owned contributed about $16.8 million to federal candidates and about $6.4 million to them so far this cycle.

BAYH FOR 'FAIR ELECTIONS': While the Schuman-Van Hollen legislation would only be a stop-gap in the expected flood of corporate money into the political arena, a more weighty campaign finance reform is gaining support in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision. Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), who recently announced that he is retiring at the completion of his term, signed on to the Fair Elections Now Act as a co-sponsor, reports Sam Stein at the Huffington Post. The Fair Elections Now Act would set up a voluntary public financing system for national campaigns, and would emphasize raising a large number of small contributions rather than large contributions or bundling large donations. Bayh became the ninth senator to sign on to the bill, which was introduced in the Senate by Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Arlen Specter (D-Pa.). The bill also has 134 co-sponsors in the House. In his New York Times op-ed, "Why I'm Leaving the Senate," Bayh, no stranger to fund-raising, stated his belief that the decision in Citizens United will worsen the "institutional inertia gripping Congress," compounding the problem of a campaign finance system that encourages "perpetual campaigns."

CRP IN THE NEWS: Wall Street likes to win and is showing its affection to Democrats and incumbents according to David Weidner at MarketWatch, citing CRP data …The banking industry is not taking it lying down: Eliza Newlin Carney at the National Journal cites CRP lobbying data in a discussion of the battle being waged by financial industry lobbyist to fend off financial reform legislation ... Syndicated columnist Cal Thomas mentions our research in his latest column.

Have a news tip or link to pass along? we want to hear from you! E-mail us at press@crp.org.

Doing Health Care and Student Loan Reform Together

2010-03-09T16:34:00+00:00

Sources are telling The Hill that the Democrats have decided to add a bill to eliminate government subsidies to student loan companies to the budget reconciliation bill that will iron out the differences between the Senate and House health care bills.

Senate Democratic leaders have decided to pair an overhaul of federal student lending with healthcare reform, according to a Democratic official familiar with negotiations.

“It’s going in,” said the Democratic source, in reference to the student lending measure.

In fact, it’s likely that the student loan bill will become the legislative vehicle for the health care budget reconciliation sidecar. That is, Obama’s proposed package of health care compromises will likely be added to the student loan bill and then brought to both chambers for passage under budget reconciliation rules.

The student loan bill is H.R. 3221, commonly known as the “Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2009.” It would save the government $67 billion (.pdf) over the next ten years, and $40 billion of that would go back to students in the form of increased Pell grant funding. Some the rest of the savings would be given to community colleges and early-childhood programs.

It passed the House in September on a mostly party-line vote, but pressure from the student loan industry has caused it to stall in the Senate. Adding it to the budget reconciliation bill is seen as the Democrats’ only chance at overcoming the industry-led opposition, which is being championed in Congress by Republicans, moderate Democrats and Democrats from states that house major student loan companies. But if opposition to it ends up threatening health care reform, it will certainly be dropped.

When the House passed the student loan bill, four Democrats voted “no.” Three of them also voted against the health care bill, but one of them, Rep. Paul Kanjorski [D, PA-11], voted for the health care bill. At the time, Kanjorski argued that private competition in the government-backed federal loan industry helped to reduce costs and improve services, and that the bill would cost jobs in his district, which houses a large lending division of Sallie Mae. If these objections outweigh his support for health care reform, the Democrats will have to drop the student loan bill, since health care is likely to come to down to a single vote in the House.

Image from March 4 S.F. state education protest from Steve Rhodes used under a CC license.

Congress Links

2010-03-09T16:10:00+00:00

Here are a few articles and blog posts from today that you probably should check out:

Our colleague Paul Blumenthal at the Sunlight Foundation explains how energy industry donations tie into Sen. Blanche Lincoln’s [D, AR] opposition to Environmental Protection Agency regulations of greenhouse gases. (The Sunlight Foundation)
Disgraced and outgoing Rep. Eric Massa [D, NY-29] was embraced by some conservatives for opposing President Obama’s health care reform bill. The Weekly Standard warns that this will have consequences when the full details of Massa’s actions comes to light. (The Weekly Standard)
Democrats are also pushing back against Massa’s claims that he was pushed out for his vote against the health care bill. (The Hill)
There seems to be a new story each day about how some House Democrat plans to vote on health care. Ezra Klein explains why you shouldn’t put too much stock in these reports. (The Washington Post)
Fully recognizing the irony of this, here’s a story implying that a deal could be worked out on health care with Rep. Stupak [D, MI-1] over abortion. (The Associated Press)
The Wall Street Journal has a great op-ed explaining what cost control mechanisms are in the health care bill. But since the op-ed is for subscribers only, I’m linking to Kevin Drum’s smart take on it. (Mother Jones)

Some links

2010-03-09T15:28:13+00:00

1) Nancy Scola presents a very important view of lobbyist influence in Congress. She writes about lawmakers, “They’re not crooks, they’re idiots! So many members of Congress — too many of them — outsource their thinking, and voting, on all but the matters most central to their own affairs, to the think tanks and lobbyists who are paid, well, to produce articulate and generally verifiable (though, naturally, quite biased) talking points, background memoranda, and opening statements on whichever topics matter most to their interests.”

2) Another good statement of fact that gets overlooked, particularly in the “Washington-is-broken” themed moment, Ezra Klein writes, “I continue to think the degree to which Americans hate watching the legislative process is a bigger issue than either side realizes.”

3) Poli-Sci visual designer Edward Tuffte was nominated to the Recovery Independent Advisory Panel to advise the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, which oversees the disclosure and accountability of stimulus data.

McCain Backs Away From His Own Vitamin Bill

2010-03-09T14:10:00+00:00

After receiving pushback from Sen. Orrin Hatch [R, UT], Sen. John McCain [R, AZ] has pulled his support for his own bill regulating vitamin supplement manufacturers. Some of Hatch’s biggest donors, of course, are in the vitamin supplement industry.

I’ve covered this issue before but the condensed version is that McCain recently introduced a bill (S.3002) that would give the Food and Drug Administration greater authority to regulate the sale of vitamin supplements. McCain’s bill represents a significant overhaul of the current Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA), which allows vitamin supplements to be categorized as food instead of medicine and therefore receive less thorough regulation.

Last week, McCain’s office confirmed that McCain had withdrawn his support for his own bill after discussing the issue with Sen. Hatch. A letter from Hatch thanking McCain can be seen here (PDF warning) via Over the Counter Today.

Hatch and Sen. Tom Harkin [D, IA] both helped craft the supplement industry-friendly DSHEA in 1994 and are two of the law’s biggest defenders in Congress. Both Hatch and Harkin are also two of the biggest recipients of campaign dollars from the vitamin supplement industry.

Since 1989, dietary supplement manufacturer Herbalife International has been Sen. Harkin’s top campaign donor. And in the current campaign cycle, supplement manufacturers such as XanGo LLC, Herbalife and Nu Skin Enterprises have given tens of thousands of dollars to Hatch.

McCain is reportedly working with Hatch to craft a new vitamin supplements measure that lacks the regulatory teeth of his previous bill.

For more information on this issue check out our wiki page. And if you can, take the time to add any other information you might have to it.