Return on investment

Where can you get a 22,000 percent rate of return?

Congress.

About 800 companies got $220 for every dollar they spent on lobbying lawmakers in 2004 for the passage of a tax break, reports the Washington Post on a University of Kansas study into the unbelievable rewards of lobbying.

The companies pocketed about $100 billion in the reduction of tax rates on profits earned oversees, and more importantly, showed who runs Washington D.C.

Legislation runs like so: The companies fund the campaigns of the congressmen in order to get their cooperation in the corruption once in office. Big business banks profits without warrant; congressmen get re-elected. It’s no shock lobbying has become a $3 billion business.

The effects of lobbying make the resulting legislating and regulation laughable. Remember when bank executives testified before congressional committees about the need for bailouts to unfreeze credit markets?

Those executives contributed millions to the very congressmen who sat on the committee. No wonder tracking TARP has been nonexistent.

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