GOP Guts Ethics Laws Since Elelction

Just days after the stampede of top Bush Administration leaving their posts, the Bush Administration has weakened ethics laws to allow them to get fantastic jobs lobbying the Administration.

Until 23 November, the law required former Cabinet members and top officials from lobbying their former departments for a year after leaving public service. But no more. The Department of Ethics waived that one-year waiting period.

And that lowering of the bar was apparently so important that the Department of Ethics also rushed it through without the usual procedures for rules changes:

These changes were so urgent that the ethics office found that "good cause exists for waiving the general requirements for notice of proposed rulemaking, opportunity for public comment and . . . a 30-day delayed effective date."

Source: Washington Post

This is what you get from the Bush Administration, and the GOP in particular. In less than a month after the election, the House of Representatives lowered their ethics standards, and the Bush Administration has now lowered theirs. And the reason in both instances was to personally benefit the politicians. In this instance, the goal also was to allow corporations to gain even more control of the Federal Government by hiring the graduating class of 2004 politicians, whose pockets will be hansomely lined by the corporations who will hire them as lobbyists.

It should frighten Americans that the top priority of the GOP since the 2004 Election appears to be to lower ethics rules and laws across the board. Put in context, this is the same GOP that has refused to protect America by passing the Intelligence Reform Bill.