Lobbyists: Not as bad as the Dems say

Caucus season is fun in Iowa. That is, unless you are trying to watch television. One can’t watch Saturday Night Live without seeing a "floating cross" or hearing the meaningless mantra "change, change, change."

It follows that last night, in between push-polling calls, I saw several commercials from Democratic candidates decrying lobbyists and their "grip" on Washington.

Those evil, greedy slimeballs always try to bribe our angelic elected officials, right? That’s what the Dems would have you think, but it’s not true.

You see, lobbyists are written into the Constitution. The First Amendment to the document prohibits Congress from abridging the "right of the people…to petition the government for redress of grievances." Who petitions the government? Certainly not the average citizen. Very few Americans actually call or e-mail their representatives. Lobbyists do. They don’t work for their own satisfaction- they work for people like you and I.

Lobbyists, I daresay, are good for the government, as well as for the people. The masses of the uninformed who are anti-lobbyist often don’t realize that they, themselves, are represented by myriad organizations. The truth is we all are represented by interest groups at some point of another. To make things easier, if you fit into one of these groups, you should not whine about either interest groups or lobbyists, as they’ve helped you in the past:

Student, farmer, animal lover, gun-owner, teacher, environmentalist, gay, lesbian, transgendered, health care provider, health care recipient, African-American, Arab-American, Latino, Muslim, Jewish, elderly, union members…

The list goes on and on, but I’ll stop there.

The point is, lobbyists aren’t the incarnation of Satan, as Hillary and Obama would have us believe. Rather, they are a fundamental tool in the creation of policy. They help the voices of specific interest groups get to the ears of our elected officials.