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Is it okay for politicians to accept dinners, vacations and other "gifts" from lobbyists and supporters?

Results so far:

Yes
16% 40 votes Total: 250 votes
No
84% 210 votes

There is no realistic reason for them to be able to receive anything free from Lobbyists for any reason the implications of accepting I would liken to the "Payola Scam" on the radio decades ago. After all if they accept anything from any lobby group would we not assume if they vote in their favor that was part of the reason, they receive the gift in the first place.



They get free this and free that paid for by our sweat equity in a political system that is obviously broken. If they are supposed to be, protecting the majority interests of the country then why is any organization or group of supporters given so much preferential treatment?

This is an obvious conflict of interest in legal terms since the implication of the vote in exchange for any gifts clearly doesn't seem to be in the best interest of the majority of people politicians are serving. Congress should stop acting as if the government has to entice individuals to serve by offering such rewards in the first place.

Governmental service is supposed to be about the common good of the country, not the common good of staying in office and pleasing those who are providing the free enticements in exchange for the potential votes in their favor.

After all, in a quid pro quo system if they are not voting in the favor of those lobbyists then there will be no more free dinners will there. In a system that seems to be so lost as to what is truly in the best interest of the majority of Americans they need to vote to better society as a whole instead of voting for the betterment of a group who can afford to provide free gifts.

With so many problems in our political system and our economic issues as America struggles to be the industrial leader of the world as it once was, it fails to do what is best for all Americans not just those providing extra benefits.

After all, at some point, there must have been lobbyists working toward letting more companies ship jobs overseas and clearly, there was no stopping this until there were fewer truly American companies in America.

Other lobbyists were bargaining for American companies to have the rights to sell ownership rights to overseas companies and as this has happened, more of our American made company profits shipped overseas, not in America.

Learn more about this author, J. Lee Kenser.
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