The Nation: K Street's Favorite Democrat

[marmar]

article | posted March 1, 2007 (March 19, 2007 issue)
K Street's Favorite Democrat
Ari Berman


In October 2005 Republican lobbyist Leo Giacometto hosted a NASCAR Fundraiser in Georgia. For $2,500 a pop donors received breakfast at the Ritz-Carlton and a day at Atlanta's famed Motor Speedway. Giacometto, a former chief of staff to Montana GOP Senator Conrad Burns--disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff's favorite senator--has been involved in a number of tawdry political scandals, raising questions about why any elected official would want to be associated with him. But the most interesting thing about his NASCAR party was the identity of the guest of honor: not a fellow Republican but the Democratic senator from his home state, Max Baucus. To Giacometto, Baucus, the ranking Democrat on the powerful Senate Finance Committee, was not a partisan adversary but a useful and valuable ally. "I believe that he's good for what I believe in," the lobbyist told the Billings Gazette.

Today, in the aftermath of the Democratic sweep of Congress, Baucus is still one of corporate America's favorite Democrats. As chair of the Finance Committee, he counts among his friends and political supporters a Who's Who of bankers, oilmen, ranchers, pharmaceutical lobbyists and Wall Street executives. He's particularly close to Montana's sole billionaire, industrialist Dennis Washington, a major donor to the Republican Party whose business interests Baucus has promoted over the years. The business community, in turn, expresses admiration for Baucus in its usual style--by writing big checks.

The Finance Committee has always had an incestuous relationship with corporate lobbyists, and with Baucus at the helm, the tradition continues. In their book about the tax reform act of 1986, authors Jeffrey Birnbaum and Alan Murray coined a term for the lobbyist-packed hallway outside the Finance Committee hearing room: Gucci Gulch. With jurisdiction over taxes, Social Security, Medicare, healthcare and international trade, the committee is the place that raises all the government's money and spends half of it. "It really is the committee, more than any other, that decides what kind of government you have," says Lawrence O'Donnell, former chief of staff of the Finance Committee, whose chair was Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

The rap on Baucus is that he has always valued his own re-election above all else. He's up again in 2008. The question is: What is he sacrificing to get there? When Democrats were in the minority, Baucus brokered the passage of two of George W. Bush's signature first-term achievements: his massive 2001 tax cuts and his 2003 Medicare prescription drug plan. He's spent the better part of the Bush presidency cutting deals with Republicans and infuriating members of his own party, voting for the war in Iraq, the energy bill, the bankruptcy bill and to confirm Supreme Court Justice John Roberts. On core economic issues, the very ones that come before his committee, only one Democrat, Nebraska's Ben Nelson, has a more conservative voting history, according to National Journal. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070319/berman

[williesgirl]

1. 2008 is coming Senator - hope you're defeated by a better and true Dem. recommended