Dear editor:
Lobbying is destroying America.
We should be pushing for a law barring any corporation currently operating under a federal government contract from lobbying for more business until, and unless, government asks for bids.
This would be applied to the private for-profit prison industries who lobby for tougher and longer prison sentences and especially the defense industry, who lobby for more war and mercenaries instead of soldiers who make three times the pay. These corporations lobby for one reason only, to increase their profits. Not for anything that benefits the nation as a whole. I believe what they lobby for directly threatens our way of life.
Another such is the privatization of the NSA with 80 percent more or less of their budget in the hands of private, for-profit corporations who lobby for ... You got it, more spying. We are being tricked into giving up our constitutional right to privacy under the 4th Amendment, and for more wars, not for national security, but for corporate profit.
It is time to stop selling off our American values to for-profit corporations who, in the end, abandon America when it suits their corporate interests in their endless pursuit of more profits. These same corporations promote laws allowing them to "legally" evade paying taxes, shifting the burden to the rest of us, then denying us any benefits for our contributions to government.
Greed is not good. It's destructive to democracy. And with "dialing for dollars," it's their voice, not ours, that our "representatives" hear.
Judith Zitko
Hot Springs Village
Editorial on 05/01/2016