"Corporate America" is not just a casual phrase

Business-government links-
The business and government sectors are far too entangled. The corporate lobby has its fingers deeply dug into controlling what government does regarding corporate interests.
Campaign contributions -
From Talking Points Memo comes this story illustrating my feeling that The United States is being run by the corporate sector. Justin Rood blogs that "corporate interests have decided that Dem lawmakers are the 'must-have' accessory for the fall season." So it is not just those in the Republican party with potential ties to big business. Now Democrats are fair game for those wishing to" own a lawmaker."
The government/private sector revolving door -
is spinning as public and private sector officials change jobs. For example, Yahoo News reports that Homeland security officials are leaving the agency in droves to join the private sector. Quote,

"People have a right to make a living," Clark Kent Ervin, the former inspector general of the Homeland Security Department told the newspaper. "But working virtually immediately for a company that is bidding for work in an area where you were just setting the policy _that is too close. It is almost incestuous."
The Times found that at least 90 former officials in the department and the White House Office of Homeland Security now work for companies that do billions of dollars worth of business in the homeland security industry.
Loopholes in federal law make it easy for former bureaucrats to quickly capitalize on their government work.

Conflicts of interest -
are not always disclosed. The New York Times carried a story discussing the fact that government officials corporate ties and conflicts of interest are often not known by lawmakers. In this case it is about those working to help solve the nation's security problems. To quote from the article,

When the storm erupted several months ago over plans by a United Arab Emirates-based company to take over management of a half-dozen American port terminals, one voice resonated in Washington.
Stephen E. Flynn, a retired Coast Guard commander who is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, repeatedly told lawmakers and reporters that domestic
ports were so vulnerable that terrorists could easily sneak a radioactive device into something as innocuous as a shipment of sneakers. And he offered a solution: a cargo inspection system in Hong Kong that scans every container, instead of the fraction now checked in the United States.
"The top priority should be working with the overseas terminal operators and putting in place a system that is being piloted in Hong Kong," Mr. Flynn told a House panel in March. "We have to view every container as a Trojan horse."
Homeland Security Department officials and lawmakers had been aware of the innovative port security approach in Hong Kong, but they had been reluctant to embrace it, convinced that screening every container at a port would be impractical. Mr. Flynn's forceful advocacy has changed that view.
. . . But in most of his public comments this year — in at least three television interviews, two other appearances before Congress, opinion pieces in The New York Times and Far Eastern Economic Review and in nearly two dozen newspaper or magazine articles — Mr. Flynn's connection to S.A.I.C. was not noted. Even Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who was briefed by Mr. Flynn during a tour of the Hong Kong port, said he did not initially know of Mr. Flynn's involvement with
the company.

"People have a right to make a living,"
says Clark Kent Ervin (above). A top State Department will be leaving for Wall Street next month. Zoellick quits Yahoo News Quoting the story,

He is going to announce that he will be stepping down. It's a good time for him to leave as he is into his sixth year in the administration," said a senior U.S. official, who declined to be named as he did not want to upstage the official announcement at 9 a.m. EDT.

The official said Zoellick would leave in July for his new position in the private sector. For several months, Zoellick has been speaking to Wall Street firms about moving to a more lucrative position there.

The New York Times announced that in July Zoellick will be joining Goldman Sachs. He worked there in the past. Also, remember that the chairman of Goldman Sachs, Henry Paulson, Jr. has been nominated by our current president to be the new Treasury Secretary
Ironic -
The above quote from Clark Kent Ervin ends with, "It is almost incestuous." No kidding!

Tags: corporations politics conflict of interest revolving door lobbying