Democracy for Sale: First Class and 4 Stars Only

Recently a team of Graduate Students from Northwestern researched through the archives of Congression Travel Records (kept underground beneath the Capital) and found that Congression Ethics rules are being regularly violated when it comes to free travel offerred to Congressmen by lobbyists.

Certainly none of this is shocking or even surprising, but the amount of money upwards of $14 Million in gifts given since 2000 and how this money has been used to modify votes and legislation both by Republicans and Democrats should be shocking,

It's become a sad state of affairs that this ongoing politlcal bribery is taken instride, and that ability of monied interests to turn the government into a wholely owned subsidary of their corporations barely raises and eyebrow anymore.

Just Take a look here and see just how many gifts your representatives have taken.

Using methods such as these, pharmecutical industry lobbyists were able to block access to cheaper canadian drugs and limit the ability of medicare's bulk buying power to keep the cost of prescription drugs down in the just passed Medicare Drug Bill.

These things matter.

And this is yet another reason why we need not just Campaign Finance Reform, we need Democracy Reform

Vyan