It would have been more honest to tell the public initially about Broderick's lobbying activities including lobbying for the Financial Services Forum of which Goldman Sachs is a member. There's a stench of corruption in the air when such information is not forthcoming.
When the banks fail to fulfill their role in supporting the economy honestly and competently, then they should not be bailed out. There is more than money that contributes to the life-blood of the economy.
Top Obama campaign aide lobbied for bank bailout
Senior campaign advisor Broderick Johnson was paid over $1 million to lobby for Wall St. over past five years
By Justin Elliott - salon.com
The Obama campaign is keeping mum on the role senior advisor Broderick Johnson played in lobbying for the 2008 Wall Street bailout when he worked as a hired gun for the country’s largest financial services companies.Johnson’s past work as a lobbyist was noted in the press when he was appointed a top Obama surrogate in late October, but not the details of his extensive and lucrative work for the financial services industry. Johnson’s hiring despite his recent work for Wall Street strikes a dissonant note in view of the Obama camp’s reported strategy of “channeling anti-Wall Street anger” as a way to take on the Republicans.
Records show that in 2008, as an employee at Washington law firm Bryan Cave, Johnson lobbied for the $700 billion TARP bailout on behalf of the Financial Services Forum, which is composed of the CEOs of the 20 biggest financial institutions doing business in the United States. Forum members include big names like Goldman Sachs, UBS, AIG, Bank of America and Deutsche Bank.
From 2007 through the first quarter of 2011, Johnson and a handful of other Bryan Cave lobbyists were paid $450,000 by the Financial Services Forum, records show. Johnson and a small number of colleagues brought in a total of $1.3 million to Bryan Cave from the financial services industry over the past five years. That includes work he did for Fannie Mae, Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase, the Electronic Payments Coalition and the investment firm J.C. Flowers.
Asked for details about Johnson’s work on the bailout, an Obama campaign spokesperson responded only that “Broderick is no longer a lobbyist — he deregistered in April — and he will not discuss any matters related to his clients with the campaign or administration.”
Because of the campaign’s reticence, we don’t know many of the details of Johnson’s work for the Financial Services Forum beyond the fact that at the height of the fall 2008 crisis, he lobbied on the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, which created the $700 billion TARP program. After the House narrowly defeated the first version of the bill in late September 2008, Financial Services Forum executive Rob Nichols sounded the alarm.
“Just as the cardiovascular system is the essential, life-sustaining system of the body, the financial system is the essential basis upon which the growth and vitality of all other sectors of the economy depend,” Nichols said. “We believe this legislation is critically important and should be enacted into law at the earliest possible time in order restore market stability and increase credit availability for Americans.”
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