1986 U.S. Sen. Bill Bradley and House Rep. Dick Gephardt introduced bills in Congress eliminating most corporate tax loopholes.
Both bills passed legislation. When the final bill reached President Regan’s desk, he signed it into law. He said, “We are going to close the unproductive loopholes that allow some of the truly wealthy to avoid paying their share.”
This summer, the nonprofit Center for Climate and Energy Solutions offered a seminar for Capitol Hill staffers on the merits of capturing carbon dioxide from power plants to boost oil production while storing the gas underground. Speakers included representatives of Arch Coal; the AFL-CIO; the Natural Resources Defense Council’s climate program manager; and former Missouri Democratic Rep. Dick Gephardt.
The Cantor sweepstakes has become a source of fascination within the backslapping carousel of the capital. “He’s got a lot of private-sector friends he has done favors for,” says Tom Davis, a former Republican congressman from Virginia who now works for Deloitte & Touche. “I think it would be easy for him to become Eric Cantor Inc. and make a few million dollars a year.” After all, Cantor, whose net worth is already listed between $4.4 million and $14.3 million, will soon be unburdened by pesky House ethics and disclosures and restrictions. Given his contacts and pedigree, he could one day eclipse the Tauzin Line, which is named for the former Louisiana congressman Billy Tauzin, who made $11.6 million as a pharmaceutical lobbyist in 2010. Even if he follows the more modest route of Dick Gephardt, the former House majority leader, he’ll still do O.K. Gephardt, who played a convincing working-class hero during his two Democratic presidential campaigns, now runs a consulting firm that made $4.8 million in lobbying income alone last year.
Former Rep. Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.) is helping the National Association of Manufacturers with the group’s push to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank before its charter expires on Sept. 30. The trade association hired Gephardt Group Government Affairs and has a team of three other lobbyists working on the account. Advocates for the bank are squaring off against conservative critics who equate the lending activities to crony capitalism.
“Their goal is to combat the most serious threat yet to the survival of the agency, which is under assault by new House leadership and conservative groups that say it amounts to corporate welfare. … The business groups have brought in big names such as former House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt, a Democrat, and former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a Republican, to promote the bank’s worth.
“Their goal is to combat the most serious threat yet to the survival of the agency, which is under assault by new House leadership and conservative groups that say it amounts to corporate welfare. … The business groups have brought in big names such as former House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt, a Democrat, and former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a Republican, to promote the bank’s worth. Hamilton Place Strategies, hired to lobby on the issue for the manufacturers, has created a ‘war room’ to provide rapid response to counter critics via email and social media.”
In an effort to protect their product, pesticide makers are loading up on high-powered lobbyists. Bayer, the largest manufacturer of neonics, has signed former House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt’s firm to lobby on the issue, according to disclosure records filed at the end of June. Gephardt himself is listed as a lobbyist for the company, along with his former chief of staff, Thomas O’Donnell, and aide Sharon Daniels.
