Pork Spending.

[Philly Mike]

Not all lobbyists are bad. Some are quite good. AARP, the American Healthcare Association, the National Education Association...almost all industries have lobbyists, not all are evil. Don't chop down the entire orchard because of a few bad apples.

problem is that there are more than just a few bad apples. if you want to continue with the orchard thing, there could be a whole section of the orchard that would be contributed to big oil. not to mention all of the others that had caused problems in the past. The big companies that wanted less regulation in the oil market for futures, thus causing the problem we have now with fuel and enticing the greed of the oil producers. Or the many health insurance companies that continue to to run wild with raising the prices of their insurance and lowering the benefits they provide. Or how about all of the cigarette companies going unchecked for as long as they did. maybe we can even talk about the nice bunch of trees that show of the power of the big banks that drove the products and risky investments that brought our countries financial situation as low as it is now, along with the rest of the world. if you want to look at the NEA or AARP then yeah there are good spots, but to me it looks like the orchard has been plagued by locusts, and there are only a few good apples that were missed.