To Clean Out K Street Cut Government, Says Bob Barr

“Big Government reduces our liberty and prosperity,” says Bob Barr, the Libertarian Party candidate for president. “It also corrupts the political process. For it is pursuit of federal dollars and regulatory privileges that has led to the explosive growth of the lobbying complex we call K Street,” explains Barr.

After the Republican Party took control of Congress in 1994, the GOP leadership attempted to take control of K Street, forcing the hiring of more Republicans and using the lobbies for partisan advantage. “Now the Democrats, having won control of Congress in 2006, are trying to do the same,” observes Barr. Roll Call reports that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and other Democratic leaders are demanding that K Street accept and work with the new rulers of Capitol Hill.

“Unfortunately, the housing legislation now before Congress shows the result of this cozy relationship: massive bail-outs, political slush funds, and additional assaults on our pocketbooks and our liberties,” says Barr. So-called reform bills, like Sen. John McCain’s assault on the First Amendment in the guise of purifying campaign finance, only reshuffle who has influence. Indeed, despite Sen. McCain’s reformist rhetoric, his campaign has been funded and run by lobbyists.

K Street will be with us as long as Washington has more than $3 trillion in taxpayers’ money and endless regulatory favors to dispense to the well-connected. The Democrats are merely doing what the Republicans did before them, and the Democrats before them. Real reform requires that we shift money and power out of Washington and back to the states and the people where they belong.

Barr represented the 7th District of Georgia in the U. S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003, where he served as a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, as Vice-Chairman of the Government Reform Committee, and as a member of the Committee on Financial Services. Prior to his congressional career, Barr was appointed by President Reagan to serve as the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, and also served as an official with the CIA.

Since leaving Congress, Barr has been practicing law and has teamed up with groups ranging from the American Civil Liberties Union to the American Conservative Union to actively advocate every American citizens’ right to privacy and other civil liberties guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. Along with this, Bob is committed to helping elect leaders who will strive for smaller government, lower taxes and abundant individual freedom.