Super Committee for sale?
The 12-person “super committee” in Congress is tasked with finding $1.2 trillion in deficit cuts during the next decade. A new report shows that they might be a little biased when it comes to where to cut costs, though.
A report this week by MapLight shows that those dozen members of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction have accumulated altogether around $64 million in campaign contributions from special interest lobbyists during the last ten years; donations from legal firm lobbyists and Wall Street alone have totaled to around $42 million of those big bucks.The six Republicans and six Democrats on the committee must make a decision on where to pinch pennies, otherwise the country faces automatic cuts in defense spending and health care for the elderly. Banks shouldn’t expect to be burdened with any blows their way, however. Rawstory reports that Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Bank of American and JPMorgan Chase donated around $2 million altogether to the dozen lawmakers.Also towards the top of the list are liberal-minded lobbyists and the health industry, who each gave over $9 million apiece. Club for Growth, a free market group spearheaded by conservatives, forked over more funds than any other organization, giving nearly $1 million in total to the twelve lawmakers. Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA), received the most of it.The oil industry also shouldn’t expect to be drilled too hard asa debt deal is ironed out — the 12 members of the super committee combined pulled over $2 million from Big Oil during their careers as campaigners. Eight of those dozen lawmakers have voted in the last two years to keep taxpayer subsidies in place that support the oil corporations, and all six Republicans on the roster have gone on the record to preserve handouts to the industry.
