Yikes! My Day as a Lobbyist

While not exactly “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” I had the opportunity to spend a day on Capitol Hill last week. One of our clients has a program that could see some of their funding reprogrammed given the current fiscal year and anticipated budget challenges. At first I was a little torn. Given my very clear leaning that our governments, federal, state, and local, all need to be put back in their box, I was a little conflicted about going up to The Hill to lobby for funding. However, after attending a detailed briefing and doing some independent research, it was pretty clear that this was a very well run program, smack-dab in the heart of the core function of government that should be funded this year and next. So last week, I spent the day meeting with representatives and senators on The Hill telling them the merits of this program. We usually met with the Chief of Staff and/or a staffer who was particularly familiar with our program, but we did meet 1 house member and 1 senator which was pretty cool. In all we had meetings with 6 House and 2 Senate offices.

Two things struck me about my day on The Hill. First everyone we met with, without exception was very bright, very personable, and very clearly had extremely busy days every day of the week. As I sat in our meetings and chatted with the staffers or elected officials I wondered…how did the country get into such a mess? How is it we are $ 15.6 trillion dollars in debt? It is certainly not due to a lack of talented and motivated people. They are abundant in Washington. So how is it we are in such a financial pickle? The only thing I can think of is that in starts and bursts over the past 80 years, the government has simply expanded its reach too far into the daily lives and local economies of the regular citizens. Federal programs followed the good intentions of elected officials, and over time money followed the programs…a lot of money. I suppose when there is a trough of cash, taxed, borrowed or otherwise, those with a vested interest in the money will work to protect those interests. The next thing we know we have a system that is out of control, that turns very bright people with tremendous ability and initiative into blathering mouthpieces enslaved by “the system”. I was particularly intrigued by one conversation with the chief of staff of a long time representative. I can’t imagine many folks who are smarter and more affable than this guy. However, as we were wrapping up our conversation, he started chatting about the change in the general demeanor of DC. He said that these “new folks” (which I am pretty sure meant Tea Party folks) don’t know how anything works up here. He said they won’t even talk to the other side of the isle about cutting deals to “get things done”. I am sure that the newbies in Washington are being obstinate partly for show for the people back home, but probably also because they believe in their positions and don’t want to cut deals. Cutting all these deals is how we got in this mess. The “way things are done” has delivered us to the precipice of financial ruin with out of control government spending. Maybe these “new folks” were on to something. While it won’t be pleasant, but maybe we need sequestration to take a meat cleaver to the federal budget and share the fiscal pain across the country. We have to get out of this mess somehow. It seems a shame and a waste that the talent working on The Hill seems to gets sucked into the system of how “things get done”…no matter how bad it makes things.

The second thing that struck me was how young everyone was. While it has to be great to have their enthusiasm and fresh ideas (until they get squashed by “how things get done”) I wondered if this preponderance of under 30 staffers was a good thing. If I was ever lucky enough to be a Senator or Congressman, the first thing I would do would be to hire a chief of staff who had the experience and gumption to tell me when I was full of bologna. I looked at these kids working on in these congressional offices and had to doubt whether any of them had the confidence, courage, or life experience to tell their boss when he or she was wrong. I firmly believe that any leader at any level needs someone on their staff with standing to tell them when they are full of shit. I heard a snippet from a commencement speech by Condie Rice in which she said if you find yourself surrounded by people who say “amen!” to everything you say or do, you probably need to start hanging around some different people. I think our representatives and senators need to think about adding a curmudgeon or two to their staffs – really smart, really crabby folks who speak their minds.

So we went to Washington, said our piece and went home. They day after we were there, I am sure there was another similar cadre to ours pleading their case for program funding just as passionately, but certainly not as eloquently, as we had the day before. I guess that’s just the way the system works…until someone breaks it or until it breaks itself under the weight of crushing debt. One of the two will happen. I hope it’s the former. I hope I didn’t contribute to the probability of the latter.