America Trends Podcast
EP 800 Business Lobbyists Have Dominated D.C. for Fifty Years: Now It All Makes Sense
We have had nearly fifty years of wage stagnation, unaffordable health care, low social mobility, predatory mortgage practices, and inflamed class and race resentments. That’s the same period in which business lobbyists have overwhelmed the scene in Washington, D.C. with smart, aggressive and targeted approaches to influencing Congressional action. And they have had their way. It’s not the familiar caricature buttonholing of the old days where you wined and dined Congressman X to get Y result. And there’s no better chroniclers of this approach than brothers Brody and Luke Mullins in their riveting book, “The Wolves of K Street: The Secret History of How Big Money Took Over Big Government.” Even the Dodd-Frank legislation in the wake of the banking fiasco in 2009 and Obamacare are products designed in large part by the businesses they were meant to tame in a regulatory sense. The pushback from consumer and environmental groups melted in the heat of the wads of cash and influence just too big to compete with. Is there some simmering pushback now, finally? We discuss this important topic with Brody Mullins on this podcast.