According to the Miami Herald:
Even as Miami-Dade faces its most critical budget crisis in decades, the county is spending more money lobbying the federal government than any other county in the country....only the governments of Puerto Rico and Pennsylvania -- a commonwealth and a state -- have spent more than Miami-Dade County this year on federal lobbyists.
This gets my all time worst labels of: Boondoggle, ick and Sucks, which translates to BIS as usual. The Herald said:
The county in the first two quarters of the year paid the three primary contractors: Alcalde & Fay, $180,000; Cardenas Partners, $100,000; and Greenberg Taurig, $60,000. The subcontractors: Akerman Senterfitt, $40,000; Thurman Gould, $30,000; and the Carrie Meek Group, $18,000.
Lobbyist Al Cardenas said:
"Florida ranks at the bottom most of the time in terms of what it gets from Washington and clearly has to work harder than most,'' Cardenas said. "And Miami Dade, being the largest county in the state and one of the biggest in the nation, needs assistance more than most. It comes from a state that gets the least, so it stands to reason it would need more help in advocating for its interests."
Sounds like throwing all that money at lobbyists isn't doing much good. We have been lobbying for years, but as Al admits, we aren't getting much.
6 comments:
Its not like we are getting anything for that money either. Florida and Miami-Dade in particular always get screwed when it comes to federal dollars.
"Florida ranks at the bottom most of the time in terms of what it gets from Washington..."
Job well done!
The taxpayers get screwed again...
I don't quite understand what Al Cardenas, who was heavily tied in with the Florida Republican Party and the Bush Administration, is doing on the payroll, given that we have a Democratic President and Congress.
I guess he wasn't able to help us much with Bush; what makes anyone think he can do better with Obama?
Good point.
Maybe the news that Bush is not in office is a bit slow to make it to county hall?
But then, perhaps, Al was signed to a multi-year contract and he gets paid for all the years in the deal even if he doesn't have to work so hard? After all, it isn't his fault that the Dems don't want to talk to Rep lobbyists.
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