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Publisher's
Note: Meet the $2 million Cajun...former
Rep. Billy Tauzin, goes from Congress,
after leading the fight to have prescription
price controls to plush job with
Pharmaceutical Manufacturers of America.
This is yet another example of the influence
of big pharmaceutical companies over our
elected officials. And this $2 million year
a job is just one of many for which the
pharmas are paying such sums...all the while
citing the need for high US prices to fund
R&D. Read on to find out how pharmaceutical
companies work in DC.
GOVERNMENT ETHICS The K Street shuffle, or
how a Congressman who opposes price controls
on pharma is rewarded
Reprinted from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
02/16/2004
IN 1995, THEN HOUSE REPUBLICAN Whip Tom
DeLay of Texas and conservative activist
Grover Norquist launched what they called
their "K Street Project." The idea: for
Republicans to take over the big lobbying
firms as successfully as they already had
taken hold of the House of Representatives.
Mr. DeLay and Mr. Norquist, who own four of
the sharpest elbows in Washington, pushed
relentlessly. They went after not only
campaign contributions for GOP candidates,
but also high-paying jobs for members of
Congress who wanted to enter the private
sector. Their message was clear: If you want
to get along with us, get yourself some
Republicans.
Nine years into the project, K Street -
whose shiny office towers are home to so
many of the nation's trade associations -
has turned Republican red. The symbiosis is
in full flower and the revolving door is
spinning merrily.
Consider: Last year Rep. Billy Tauzin,
R-La., the chairman of the House Energy and
Commerce Committee, led the fight to keep
price controls out the new Medicare
prescription drug benefit bill. The
government will be underwriting the cost of
drugs for senior citizens, and the
pharmaceutical industry wanted to make sure
the government paid the going, exorbitant,
rate. Thanks in no small part to Mr.
Tauzin's efforts, price controls were
outlawed. Nor is the government even allowed
to try to negotiate volume discount p s will
pay more for the program. Either way, Big
Pharmaceuticals comes out way ahead.
Now, by sheerest of coincidences, Mr. Tauzin
has decided to retire from Congress. And who
should come along to offer him a nice office
a block north of K Street and a reported $2
million annual salary but the Pharmaceutical
Research and Manufacturers of America?
Predictably, Democrats are outraged. "If you
want to know the price of selling seniors
down the river, it's approximately $2
million a year," said House Minority Leader
Nancy Pelosi of California.
Even some conservatives are ticked off. In a
column headlined "Republican Rot" on The
Wall Street Journal's online editorial page,
conservative author John Fund wrote, "One
way you can tell that Republicans have
become the dominant political party in
Washington is to watch them cash in."
To be sure, since the founding of the
republic, Democrats, Republicans - and
before them, Whigs - have been cashing in on
government service. Mr. Tauzin added a new
wrinkle, lobbying for a lobbying job even
before he announced his retirement, playing
the Motion Picture Association of America
against the pharmaceutical manufacturers and
driving his price up.
Also new is the methodical, systematic and
shameless approach that Mr. DeLay and Mr.
Norquist have taken to all of this. They
have taken influence-peddling out of the
dark corners where it skulked for 225 years
and brought it into the bright light of day.
They're betting that a jaded and cynical
public no longer expects anything better.
What's worse, they may be right.rices. This
means either that seniors will get fewer
benefits.
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