Wednesday, April 01, 2009

Abramoff: Just #2 in Lobbying Scandals

Well, that didn't take long.

I’ve told a few people that while the PMA Group scandal is different from Abramoff, in many ways it’s more serious. Abramoff was a sort of Bernard Madoff character, unique in his personal excesses, corrosively corrupting, but still just one guy. PMA Group is a methodical business. It rakes in millions of dollars in lobbying fees. Its employees and PAC contributes a few hundred thousand to various congressional campaign committees and leadership PACs. Its clients get hundreds of millions of dollars in earmarks and billions more in federal contracts. Abramoff’s excesses were fairly unique; PMA Group’s business model is standard operating procedure in Washington --Bill Allison, RealTime Investigations Blog, quoted in Sunlight Foundation Blog.

You ought to know, if you don't, that Sunlight is non-partisan. All they want is transparency in Gummint.

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