Rantburg

Today's Front Page   View All of Wed 05/28/2025 View Tue 05/27/2025 View Mon 05/26/2025 View Sun 05/25/2025 View Sat 05/24/2025 View Fri 05/23/2025 View Thu 05/22/2025
2016-11-15 Government
Donald Trump On D.C.: ‘The Whole Place is One Big Lobbyist’
[BREITBART] President-elect Donald Trump
...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States...
says he wants to drain the swamp of Washington D.C., but he admits in a recent interview that he might have to rely on lobbyists to help his transition team.

During an interview with CBS correspondent Lesley Stahl, Trump admitted that he did have lobbyists on his team, but explained that it was the current state of the culture in Washington D.C.

"Everybody’s a lobbyist down there," he said. "We’re doing a lot of things to clean up the system. But everybody that works for government, they then leave government and they become a lobbyist, essentially. I mean, the whole place is one big lobbyist."

During Trump’s presidential campaign, he promised to institute a five year ban on White House and Congressional officials becoming lobbyists after leaving government service. He also promised to create a lifetime ban of White House officials lobbying for a foreign government.

Trump indicated he would need politically connected people to help him know the system, even if they were lobbyists.

"I’m saying that they know the system right now, but we’re going to phase that out," he said during the 60 Minutes interview. "You have to phase it out."

Posted by Fred 2016-11-15 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11126 views ]  Top

#1 Trump indicated he would need politically connected people to help him know the system, even if they were lobbyists.

Set a thief ...?
Posted by g(r)omgoru 2016-11-15 06:04||   2016-11-15 06:04|| Front Page Top

#2 “Rouse him, and learn the principle of his activity or inactivity. Force him to reveal himself, so as to find out his vulnerable spots.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Posted by GORT 2016-11-15 07:53||   2016-11-15 07:53|| Front Page Top

#3 #2 “Rouse him, and learn the principle of his activity or inactivity.

As in "poke him with a stick?"
Posted by JohnQC 2016-11-15 07:56||   2016-11-15 07:56|| Front Page Top

#4 Yes, it is. However, the real lobbyists, congresscritters, are suppose to represent the people who choose to elect them, not the money people or special interest groups that have overrun the place. Dear Donald, please stay at Trump Towers, and make the vermin come to you. Move the 'flag pole'. How many Department and agency minions want to be constantly on the train, plane, automobile to NYC every day? Let alone lobbyists who have homes in the DC suburbs.
Posted by Procopius2k 2016-11-15 08:03||   2016-11-15 08:03|| Front Page Top

#5 http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/01/28/revolving-door-government-ethics/1868597/
"In short, I propose putting a 50% surtax -- or maybe it should be 75%, I'm open to discussion -- on the post-government earnings of government officials. So if you work at a cabinet level job and make $196,700 a year, and you leave for a job that pays a million a year, you'll pay 50% of the difference -- just over $400,000 -- to the Treasury right off the top. So as not to be greedy, we'll limit it to your first five years of post-government earnings; after that, you'll just pay whatever standard income tax applies.
This seems fair. After all, when it comes to your value as an ex-government official, it really is a case of "you didn't build that." Your value to a future employer comes from having held a taxpayer-funded position and from having wielded taxpayer-conferred power. Why shouldn't the taxpayers get a cut?
More significantly, it is a principle of economics that when you tax something, you get less of it. So if we're worried about revolving-door government, we should tax it, so as to get less of it.
Posted by Glenmore 2016-11-15 11:29||   2016-11-15 11:29|| Front Page Top

11:50 Crusader
11:40 swksvolFF
11:11 HeavyG
11:10 Angstrom
11:07 HeavyG
11:07 Angstrom
11:06 DarthVader
11:05 HeavyG
10:58 alanc
09:43 Mullah Richard
09:27 Warthog
09:11 Mercutio
09:07 AlmostAnonymous5839
08:52 Matt
08:24 Matt
08:20 SteveS
07:43 Procopius2k
07:42 BrerRabbit
07:42 Procopius2k
07:39 Procopius2k
07:36 Procopius2k
07:35 Procopius2k
07:34 trailing wife
07:31 Procopius2k









Paypal:
Google
Search WWW Search rantburg.com