Washington on $10 Million A Day: How Lobbyists Plunder the Nation

Some tricks of the lobbyists' trade? Use independent-sounding front groups to solicit public support for unpopular laws. Create ostensibly independent think tanks to document research supporting a corporate-favored law. (Of course Olestra is safe! Yes, we need the B-2 bomber. Disposable diapers are as environmentally sound as cloth.) Use a grassroots movement to simulate public support for an initiative (never mind that this supposedly populist effort has been covertly organized by the lobbyists themselves). Of course, winning a politician's favor is the most direct route to change: offer election campaign contributions; paid "research trips" at plush, sybaritic resorts; or a lucrative post-term career in exchange for support of a particular bill.

Silverstein offers example after convincing example of politicians persuaded more by the machinations of a lobbying firm than an issue's innate merits. He never broaches the subject of whether lobbyists actually serve any useful purpose in the political process. The book's attitude toward lobbyists is unquestionably negative; one can only assume his answer would be no. But a discussion of lobbying's possible merits would have provided a less one-sided basis for the book's points.

Silverstein says the U.S. public's apathy toward Washington's "business-as-usual" scandals and surreptitiousness, to some extent, permits the situation to continue, but reading Washington on $10 Million a Day only reinforces that feeling. The book's last chapter includes "A Brief Guide to Taking Back the Capital." Brief is correct--Silverstein devotes only three pages to ways of lessening lobbyists' influence. But he makes an important point here: with running for office as expensive as it is (an average of $500,000 for a seat in the House of Representatives, $5 million for one in the Senate), Washington's lobbyists and politicians make natural bedfellows. Americans must find ways to make the situation less comfortable for both parties. --Kris Law

Product Description
From the creator of CounterPunch--the "essential" (Noam Chomsky) newsletter--comes a lively expose of who really runs Washington. This gut-wrenching chronicle of the hostile takeover of democracy names the names and lays the blame. Silverstein fingers the corporate villains--from Boeing to UPS--who pay the hired guns to bag the big concessions of corporate welfare Extensive radio promos. National media publicity. Author speaking tour. .

Much of the book is based on reporting Silverstein did for Counterpunch. Given Silverstein's talents, one wonders why he is working for a small-circulation newsletter. Surely our major newspapers have need for investigative journalists of his talents. But then one remembers that the big papers are themselves corporate owned, and unlikely to want to shed too much light on the misdeeds of large corporations or the excesses of unrestrained monopoly capitalism.

The one flaw I can find with the book is the absence of any detailed notes on Silverstein's sources.


Inside the Corrupt Heart of the Beltway   April 20, 1998
 8 out of 8 found this review helpful

Yes, it truly is the age of retail politics. And Ken Silverstein's new expose, Washington on $10 Million a Day, shows the high price that must be paid to the lobbyists of K Street to get troubled corporations and Third World dictators out their various jams. Silvertein introduces us to the likes of Tommy Hale Boggs, the brother of ABC news diva Cokie Roberts, who charges $500 an hour to help oil companies boot Indians off potential drilling sites, bail out the interest of big banks, vouch for the character of butchers like Baby Doc Duvalier and tirelessly tread on his intimate relationship with President Bill. Then there's the noxious Edward von Kloberg, the man who fell for a Spy Magazine spoof when he indicated he would be willing to represent the interests of a German neo-Nazi group. Among van Kloberg's other clients: Saddam Hussein and Romanian thug Nicolae Ceausescu. With this new book, Silverstein goes right to the corrupt heart of the Beltway, where forgiveness for almost any crime against humanity is for sale at the right price. Silverstein is one of the nation's finest investigative reporters and this book proves he is also one of the funniest. Jeffrey St. Clair