"America For Sale" Report

Via The Daily Muck, here's a report released yesterday by Rep. Louise Slaughter's (D-NY) office. Called America for Sale (PDF), it's "181 pages of full-on muck, a valuable resource, a sort of muck encyclopedia, taking four pieces of legislation as test cases."

The most important thing to know about Washington these days is the following statistic: over the past ten years, the number of registered lobbyists in Washington has grown from around 10,000 to more than 34,000, while the fees that lobbyists charge their new clients have increased by as much as 100 percent. Today there are 63 registered lobbyists for each Member of Congress.

...Here are a few examples taken from different sections of this report showing that Republican politicians have taken care of special interests instead of the American people:

• A Confusing and Expensive Medicare Program
  
• An Energy "Strategy" That Saves No Energy
  
• Polluters Re-Writing Environmental Laws
  
• A Nation Still Vulnerable to Terrorist Attacks
  
• A Government Run by Political Hacks
  
• Fat Cats Get Their Defense Contracts, but Soldiers Don't Get Their Body Armor
  
• Drug Companies Get Off the Hook if Their Products Injure Americans
  
• Corporate Profits Up, American Family Income Down
  
• Student Loan Debt, Student Loan Industry Profits Both At Record Highs

This is worth a look, even if you don't read the whole thing. I recommend reading the "Executive Summary" (it's only 7 pages), and then at least skimming through one of the detail sections that makes up the body of the document ("Health of Seniors", "Energy Security", "Homeland Security", "Jobs", etc.), and end with at least one of the appendices (one is on the K Street Project & John Boehner, and the other's on Jack Abramoff & friends).