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So Damn Much Money So Damn Much Money (2009)

by Robert G. Kaiser(Favorite Author)

3.69 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0307271250 (ISBN13: 9780307271259)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Vintage Books USA

review 1: A dear friend sent me this book so I felt compelled to read it, if for no other reason than to delve deeper into my friend's inner being. I'm not normally a non-fiction reader, but I read this one and found the last 40 years of my life redefined by what's been happening in Washington...nothing surprising! All my life it's been par for the course to believe those in Washington are taking the public trough as their own. Nothing I read here changed that score, but I did feel sadness when certain names came up as less than stellar in the process. While my names may not be your names, have no fear, there's plenty of blame for all in this book.Finding out how lobbying got its beginnings from our country's earliest days is one thing, but watching as the folks in D.C. polished up ... morethe process over the last few decades is galling. You know, if you concentrate on the process of causing another pain, you can raionalize your way out of the obvious result. It worked in Auschwitz and it works in Washington. Willie Sutton said he robbed banks because "that's where the money is." That imperical logic is the driving engine for lobbyists, no surprise there, but the players involved are. Seeing how many of our finest academic institutions danced to the Devil's hornpipe, enabling the modern lobbyists' greatest successes is tragic. Enough.Kaiser has written a well-researched book. I hesitate to call it an expose, because it's self-evident from the title. There is just "So Damn Much Money."
review 2: This book uses the career of Gerry Cassidy, a lobbyist in Washington D.C. who created and ran the lucrative firm Cassidy and Associates. It is very "inside baseball" as has been mentioned in reviews here, but it is a very important story. Cassidy, a former aide of George McGovern who started his Washington career as a congressional aid interested in poverty and hunger, became rich off of the idea of getting earmarked funds for his clients.The books follows the rise of the importance of money in the political system, and it's not a pretty picture. Cassidy as well as many other important figures interviewed for the book openly admit that the general public has no way to get their voice heard among the PACs and corporate interests paying hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to firms like Cassidy and Associates to get their voices heard.Kaiser also chronicles the rise of political figures like DeLay and Gingrich, figures that thrived on the idea of the constant campaign. The fraudster DeLay, of course, had a career that ended in disgrace. Don't get the impression that it's only Republicans that are the problem; Cassidy's firm at first was aimed at Democrats and they are by in large just as bad. The constant need for fund raising brought in a new type of politician to the scene, one that is constantly worried about fund raising (spending 8 or more hours a week on it as Kaiser notes) because they are reliant on television and other expensive mediums like Direct Mail. More money meant a tighter integration between Congress and lobby money. Since the release of this book in 2008, of course, the situation is even worse. This is a good book to read if you wish to know the real processes of how Congress is working, however most people aren't even interested in how the official part of political process works or what is in the Constitution. Of course our politicians and the moneyed interests take advantage of that fact. Books like this on help to illustrate just how much of the political power has actually be taken away from the average taxpayer. less

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