This should not come as a surprise to anyone. The convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff recently talked to 60 Minutes about how the system was easy to game, including offering jobs to staffers who wanted to cash in. What's unfortunate about this revolving door is that it's so deeply ingrained in the system and both parties are deeply guilty of doing it.
Whether it's senior White House officials leaving for big money on Wall Street, senior GOP Senators moving to Wall Street, GOP regulators moving to work for companies that they were supposed to be regulating, Wall Street bigwigs moving into the White House, FDIC officials shifting over to work on Wall Street or senior officials inside the Pentagon "retiring" into high paying jobs with defense contractors, the system is rigged and the ruling class can't lose.
It's hard not to agree with the new Abramoff who said if we want to shut down corruption, the revolving door has to be closed permanently. Instead of spinning cycles on small corruption and small wastes of money Washington needs to look at the much bigger and more costly problem of corruption among the political class. Everything else, while important, pales in comparison to the costs of this insider corruption. It needs to change.
More on the SOPA/PIPA revolving door corruption story by TechDirt.
Two high level Congressional staffers who have been instrumental in creating or moving forward both PROTECT IP (PIPA) and SOPA have left their jobs on Capitol Hill and taken jobs with two of the biggest entertainment industry lobbyists, who are working very hard to convince Congress to pass the legislation they just helped write. And people wonder why the American public looks on DC as being corrupt.
