{"id":23196,"date":"2017-03-09T20:06:18","date_gmt":"2017-03-10T01:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=23196"},"modified":"2017-03-09T20:08:59","modified_gmt":"2017-03-10T01:08:59","slug":"why-no-ones-going-to-drain-this-swamp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=23196","title":{"rendered":"Why No One\u2019s Going to Drain this Swamp"},"content":{"rendered":"<header>\n<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"http:\/\/wolfstreet.com\/2017\/03\/08\/financial-sector-2-billion-campaign-contributions-lobbying-biggest-spenders-real-estate-not-banks\/\">Why No One\u2019s Going to Drain this Swamp<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<p><strong>The Financial Sector threw $2 Billion at Congress during the Election. Biggest Spenders? Not the Banks.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Financial Sector \u2013 whose products, risk-taking, and shenanigans blew up the sector and everything around it during the Financial Crisis \u2013 has finally gotten the memo in a serious way: During the past election cycle (2015-2016), it doused the members of the US Congress with a record amount of money to \u201cinfluence decision making\u201d and get what they want: deregulation, handouts, and subsidies.<\/p>\n<p>So how much? Over $2 billion.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s over $3.7 million per sitting member of Congress, according to a\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/ourfinancialsecurity.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/WallStreetMoney-FINAL-1.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">report<\/a>\u00a0released today by\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/ourfinancialsecurity.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Americans for Financial Reform<\/a>. The $2 billion tab fell into two categories:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Campaign contributions by companies, trade associations, and individuals associated with the financial sector: $1.104 billion. This was \u201calmost twice that of any other specific business sector.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Lobbying expenses by 460 financial sector entities: $898 million<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cThe financial sector is by far the largest source of campaign contributions to federal candidates and parties, and the third largest spender on lobbying,\u201d the report explains, based on data by the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), which tracks campaign contributions reported to the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) and lobbying expenditures reported to the Senate Office of Public Records.<\/p>\n<p>This \u201cFinancial Sector\u201d includes commercial banks, S&amp;Ls, credit unions, finance and credit companies, securities and investment firms, accountants, and \u201cmiscellaneous finance.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>But actual amounts are much higher:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Entities often report this data \u201cmany months late\u201d; contributions and lobbying expenses reported after February 8 are not included in the report.<\/li>\n<li>\u201cFinancial Sector,\u201d as defined by the CRP, excludes some trade associations and companies with a \u201cvery substantial financial interests,\u201d such as the US Chamber of Commerce, which lobbies extensively on financial issues, and the National Auto Dealers Association (NADA) which lobbies on policy regarding auto loans.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why No One\u2019s Going to Drain this Swamp The Financial Sector threw $2 Billion at Congress during the Election. Biggest Spenders? Not the Banks. The Financial Sector \u2013 whose products, risk-taking, and shenanigans blew up the sector and everything around it during the Financial Crisis \u2013 has finally gotten the memo in a serious way: [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[63,8222,1796,4254,4255],"class_list":["post-23196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-banks","tag-great-financial-crisis","tag-us-congress","tag-wolf-richter","tag-wolfstreet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23196"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23199,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23196\/revisions\/23199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}