Fix Congress, Not the Lobbyists

THIS IS ONE OF THOSE moments when you realize Congress is not an altogether serious body. There have been others. One that comes to mind is the frantic effort several decades ago to stop the National Football League from blacking out home games on local television (unless stadium tickets have already sold out). This time it's worse. The current drive for lobbying reform is purely cosmetic. And it skirts the real issue. Lobbyists, for all their selfish intentions and dubious methods, aren't the problem. Members of Congress and the way they spend taxpayers' money are. The case that does involves Republican Rep. DukeCunningham of California, who resigned from Congress after admitting taking bribes. This case exposed the incentives to corruption produced by the spending and budget practices of Congress. For a price, Cunningham would slip spending measures into appropriations bills with practically no one's noticing. The sheer complexity and opaqueness of the budget made it easy to do so. read more at the weekly standard