Tax reform, you will soon hear, can be good for everybody. But few will benefit more than those who write the legislation. On the same day that House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., got picked to join the 12-member Congressional super-committee that is charged with deciding the country’s spending and taxation fate, his political action committee sent out this invite:
Just think, for $2,500, you too can have “fun” as Camp’s PAC refills your wine glass over chats about mortgage interest deductions, profit repatriation and S-Corporation pass through rates.
We need no longer guess whether Pfizer will have a chance to play a role in the upcoming negotiations, thanks to the Pfizer PAC host duties.
As for the other members of the host committee: Susan Hirschmann is a lobbyist for Williams and Jensen, whose clients also include Pfizer, along with just about everyone else: PhRma, Visa, Brooks Brothers, American Bankers Association, Sunoco, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, AARP, General Electric, etc. She is a former chief of staff to former House Majority Whip Tom DeLay. Sam Lancaster, a former aide to Speaker Denny Hastert, now works for Comcast. Royal Roth works for UPS. Jim Rowland lobbies, appropriately enough, for the Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of America. Sally Vastola is the former chief of staff for former Rep. Tom Reynolds, R-N.Y. She now lobbies at Nixon Peabody, where Reynolds works as a “senior strategic policy advisor.” Consider this blog post an advertisement for their services.
And let us all raise a toast to Italy, a wonderful country, where politics, if you can believe it, is in an even more tawdry state of affairs.
