Bush gives it up for the lobbyists every time

[boobooday]

This is from the Center for Public Integrity article about lobbyists giving 4 times more money to Bush than to Kerry:

<quote>
But the measure of success for a lobbyist is whether he or she is able to influence legislation. Take Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw LLP lobbyist and former Bush Pioneer John Schmitz, who represents Lockheed Martin, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a health care electronic prescription company called RxHub. RxHub paid $1.3 million for the services of Schmitz and three associates. During a two-year period, they lobbied for RxHub on only one listed bill: the recently passed Medicare Prescription Drug bill.

On March 4, 2003, RxHub got a break when Bush announced support for a proposal to make medical records and prescriptions available electronically. At an American Medical Association meeting, the president announced his initiative to increase funding to "help hospitals use information technology" by 53 percent. This provision became a core part of the only bill that RxHub lobbied and had a part that critics said was "tailor made to support" RxHub. The bill signed into law by Bush in December ended up including huge authorizations in favor of the company's area of expertise at a time when the Bush administration is asking others for fiscal restraint.

<end quote>

The report is at:
http://www.publicintegrity.org/bop2004/report.aspx?aid=273&sid=200

:puke:

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