If That Don't Beat All

Okay, now here's something for you to chew on today (go ahead, spit out that tobacco). Not only are our tax dollars being spent on bailing out the big boys on Wall Street, but also on financing their lobbying efforts to keep the government regulators out of their hair so they can continue to do with our money what they want.

From Robert Reich:

Yet what's happened to the Wall Street campaign contributions and to the lobbyists? They're still going strong. We now know that many of the financial giants that have been bailed out by taxpayers continue to finance a platoon of Washington lobbyists, who are at this moment trying to influence TARP II and the next attempt to regulate Wall Street. In effect, your money and mine, and that of all other taxpayers, is paying these lobbyists to push Congress in a direction we have every reason to believe is not in our interests but in the continued interests of Wall Street. Citigroup, the recipient of $45 billion of taxpayer money so far, is still fielding "an army" of Washington lobbyists, according to the New York Times. Its lobbyists are working on a host of issues, including the bailout. In the fourth quarter of 2008, when it got its first infusion of bailout money, Citi spent $1.77million on lobbying fees. During the last three months of 2008, at least seven other firms receiving bailout funds (American Express, Capital One, Goldman Sachs, KeyCorp, Morgan Stanley, PNC and Bank of New York Mellon) lobbied the government about the bailout.

And you want to know what they are doing with that money, besides paying millions for lobbying efforts? Not loaning to you and I, that's for sure.

As Grandma used to say, "If that don't beat all..."