Who is writing the legislation? It’s not your Congress critter. At Conservative Treehouse, Sundance explains, and his entire posting is essentially Legislation 101 for
voters:
. . . Recap: Corporations
(special interest group) write the legislation. Lobbyists [K Street] take the law and go
find politician(s) to support it. Politicians get support from their peers
using tenure and status etc. Eventually, if things go according to norm, the
legislation gets a vote.
Within every step of the process
there are expense account lunches, dinners, trips, venue tickets and a host of
other customary financial waypoints to generate/leverage a successful outcome.
The amount of money spent is proportional to the benefit derived from the
outcome.
The important part to remember is that the origination of the entire process is EXTERNAL to congress.
Congress does not write laws or
legislation; special interest groups do. Lobbyists are paid, some very well
paid, to get politicians to go along with the need of the legislative group.
When you are voting for a
Congressional Rep or a U.S. Senator you are not voting for a person who will write laws. Your rep only
votes on legislation to approve or disapprove of constructs that are written by
outside groups and sold to them through lobbyists who work for those outside
groups.
While all of this is happening the
same outside groups who write the laws are providing money for the campaigns of
the politicians, they need to pass them. This construct sets up the quid-pro-quo of influence, although much
of it is fraught with plausible deniability.
This is the way legislation is
created.
If your frame of reference is not
established in this basic understanding you can often fall into the trap of
viewing a politician, or political vote, through a false prism. The modern
origin of all legislative constructs is not within congress.
“we’ll have to pass the bill to, well, find out what is in the bill”
etc. ~ Nancy Pelosi 2009
“We rely upon the stupidity of the American voter” ~ Johnathan Gruber
2011, 2012.
Once you understand this process,
you can understand how politicians get rich.
Much more at the link here.
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