[Rick Lee]

What's really wrong with Washington is that there is a need for lobbying. The federal gov't. is nothing more than a big extortion racket and if they come after your industry, you'd better ante up with a lobbyist (protection money) to keep them off your back. Just ask Bill Gates. Even as big as MS was before 2000, they had no lobbyists at all in DC before the feds came after them. Obviously, Netscape played the game a lot better. Now MS has an army of lobbyists and I'm sure it's worth every penny. Lobbying has a huge ROI. A good friend's father runs a hospital in western PA. The father deals a lot with John Murtha for federal funding request. Father told me one year he paid his lobbyist $200k in fees but got $20 million in fed. funds. That's what I call a good ROI. That kind of lobbying bothers me, but it only exists because of earmarks. Petitioning the gov't. for a redress of grievances is every bit as protected by the First Amend. as is the right to call Bush a bozo.