The Lobbyists Are Circling

The bailout bill should probably be called the "Lobbyists Full Employment Act":

Lobbyists, who had little influence in the development of the $700 billion economic bailout, are angling to play a greater role as Treasury implements the plan and Congress debates how best to strengthen financial market oversight.
“This is going to be a big trend, in all honesty, for the next three to five years,” said Rich Gold, the head of Holland and Knight’s government relations and regulatory practice.

“This one is very, very big,” said Patrick Oxford, chairman of Bracewell & Giuliani.

House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) has already declared the financial services sector in need of “serious surgery next year.”

The goal for lobbyists is to have their clients to survive the operation intact. There are likely to be few issues that will be left untouched by the broad regulatory reforms to follow, or the practical budget impacts of such a massive bailout.

“This will ripple through every piece of major legislation we are looking at next Congress,” Gold said. “This is a paradigm shift.”

For example, Gold believes that the crisis on Wall Street will even affect the debate over the highway bill next year. Some advocates have argued that projected highway fund shortfalls should be made up through a greater reliance on private sources of funds, but that position is likely to be viewed with a much more skeptical eye after the credit crunch.

“That’s over,” Gold said.

It's just beginning...