Geithner Limits Access for Lobbyists to TARP Funds...Then Hires Ex-Lobbyist as Chief of Staff!

It's Good to Be Connected

Geithner, the recently appointed Treasury Secretary who couldn't figure out TurboTax, has vowed to continue giving the imbeciles on Wall Street that ruined the American economy our taxpayer dollars. However, he has vowed to restrict lobbyist access to what's left of $700B TARP bonanza. From WaPo:

"American taxpayers deserve to know that their money is spent in the most effective way to stabilize the financial system," Geithner said in a statement yesterday. "Today's actions reaffirm our commitment toward that goal."

This sounds like a move in the right direction, since the American public has no clue how the first $350B of TARP funds was spent, and all we here from these greedy banks is that they want more. But Geithner is just putting on a dog-and-pony show, because he just hired a former Goldman Sachs lobbyist to be his Chief of Staff. From USA Today:

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner picked a former Goldman Sachs lobbyist as a top aide Tuesday, the same day he announced rules aimed at reducing the role of lobbyists in agency decisions.

Mark Patterson will serve as Geithner's chief of staff at Treasury, which oversees the government's $700 billion financial bailout program. Goldman Sachs received $10 billion of that money.

So lobbyists might be barred from stealing your tax dollars under this bailout scam, but it's okay for former ones to be the go-to guy in the Treasury department...W-T-F.

It's long been known that DC is a cesspool of sleaze and corruption, but the Obama administration rode into power vowing to change all that and impose restrictions on former lobbyists working for its staff. But, already there's a Raytheon lobbyist at the DoD, this Goldman Sachs shill, and the "global warming" czar was on the board of directors for a carbon-offsets firm in 2008. Obama must think the American public and media are so stupid that they wouldn't notice these "minor details". Unfortunately, it's already too late to make a difference.

One humorous anecdote from the USA Today article:

Dave Wenhold, of the American League of Lobbyists, said lobbyists bring expertise to the job. "Just because you are registered to lobby doesn't mean that you are evil, " he said.

Maybe not "evil" in the Hitler sense, but having a career based on manipulating public funds to your private employers benefit certainly makes you an asshole.