Washington's Revolving Door

The US is the largest drug market in the world.  It’s also the only country in the world that has no price controls on prescription drugs.  So guess who pays the highest prices for drugs in the world?  Americans.

To balance things out, we have government agencies and Congressional committees to keep an eye on drug companies to make sure they aren’t slipping the taxpayers a Mickey.

And leading those agencies and subcommittees are men like Rep. Jim Greenwood (R-PA).  Men like him are all who stand between us, and the steamroller of corporate profits.

Well, he used to stand in the way.

Now, he stands to make more money working for a company his Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations used to have oversight over and conduct investigations into.

Representative Greenwood dropped out of his reelection race and snatched up a job from the Biotechnology Industry Organization.  It’s a trade group with a $40 million annual budget that lobbies for more than 1,000 pharmaceutical and biotech companies.

In fact, just days before taking the job, a bunch of executives in those companies were supposed to testify before Greenwood’s subcommittee.  Your Congressmen were supposed to be looking into the safety of anti-depressant medicines.  There are a lot of concerns about that right now.  Studies show links between anti-depressants and suicides among teenagers.

But all of a sudden, the hearing was canceled.

Greenwood says it had nothing to do with him taking the job.  He says some lawyers just needed extra time to get their act together.

But you’ve got to figure it’s sure hard to investigate someone while you’re negotiating your new salary with them.

His new salary will be $650,000 a year.  He could get a bonus of up to $200,000.  His Congressional salary was $150,000.

Greenwood will still serve in Congress until his term ends in January.  He promises not to use his influence for his new bosses until then.

And then there are tough laws to keep him from using undue influence.  Why, he’s not allowed to lobby any of his House colleagues for a WHOLE year!  Of course, he can lobby Senators, and federal departments all he wants.

Congress really needs to get going with that hearing on anti-depressants.  Stories about Washington's revolving door really create a need for the stuff.

NPR Audio:  http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=3611727