September, 08 2009, 12:50pm EDT

Public Citizen President Robert Weissman on ...
Public Citizen President Robert Weissman on ...
Corporate influence over national policy
WASHINGTON
Public Citizen President Robert Weissman on ...
Corporate influence over national policy
"There is a common link between the policy failure to impose
meaningful restraints on Wall Street, drug companies marketing unsafe
drugs, a deeply flawed climate bill, a dysfunctional health insurance
system that results in 18,000 preventable deaths a year, cable
companies' ability to impose onerous contractual terms, and a global
trading system that undermines our government's authority to adopt
consumer, environmental and worker protections. That common link is
excessive and unchecked corporate power. Public Citizen has always been
a leader not only in addressing issues directly related to health,
safety and environmental protection, but also in working directly to
curb excessive corporate power.
"I hope to help us continue to challenge - and break down - the
false boundaries corporations have successfully imposed on policy
debates. In healthcare, the Obama administration and congressional
leaders have refused to consider the only approach - a
Medicare-for-All, single-payer system - that can cure the system's dual
ills: runaway costs and denial of coverage to tens of millions. In
climate, the legislation that has passed the House of Representatives
utterly fails to produce the economic transformation that the science
tells us we must undergo to avert climate catastrophe. In financial
regulation, the banks have defeated the most important legislative
proposals to mitigate the mortgage epidemic - leading Senate Majority
Whip Dick Durbin to say the banks 'own the place.' The banks have
announced they intend to "kill" the most important regulatory proposal
from the Obama administration - a proposed new financial consumer
protection agency. Our job at Public Citizen is to refuse to let
corporations impose these kinds of limits on policymaking."
Climate change
"Climate change is the greatest threat to the well-being of the
planet and its people. It is going to be the defining issue of the next
50 years - and the world is right now on a terribly worrisome
trajectory.
"It is good to have an administration that acknowledges the reality
of climate change and wants to address it, but the proposals on the
table are woefully inadequate. King Coal, Big Oil and the utilities,
among other industrial and agribusiness interests, have joined together
to, so far, thwart an appropriate policy response.
"There is great opportunity in responding to the crisis, with more
attention to the vibrancy of local communities, the creation of
millions and millions of new jobs, greater equity, and a sense of
shared national and global mission.. New efficiency and energy
technologies can be the engine for an economy that has lost its drivers
- which, for this decade, were the financial sector and housing.
Decentralized generation and distribution offer the possibility for
more independent and livable communities.
"But to respond to the crisis will require first recognizing it for
what it is - not just another in the list of important issues, but an
existential threat to the planet. We - all of us together, with
government in the lead - have to mobilize resources and organizational
might commensurate with the scale of the threat. In the United States,
we have to mobilize the way the country did for World War II.
"Public Citizen brings a long history of working on climate-related
policies like fuel economy standards, subsidies for fossil fuels,
stopping new coal plant construction, and promoting the development of
solar and renewable energy technologies. We are going to build on that
tradition and leverage our collective expertise in matters from global
trade to administrative law. We are going to engage our members and
allies so that together we build a strong citizen movement to overcome
the fossil fuel lobby and avert climate catastrophe."
The financial crisis
"Through its avarice and recklessness, Wall Street has sunk us into
the worst recession of the past 70 years - and, not so incidentally,
destroyed many of its leading firms. Those that survive are dependent
on the trillions of dollars in public funds used to bail out Wall
Street and the big banks.
"Yet rather than express shame and apologize, these institutions
continue to dominate the policymaking debate. Senator Durbin says the
banks "own the place," in the context of their defeat of mortgage
cramdown legislation - a modest measure to address foreclosures that
would very likely benefit banks but would contravene their ideological
opposition to adjusting loan principle. The banking industry openly
announces its plans to 'kill' the most significant Obama
administration financial regulatory proposal - to create a new
financial consumer protection agency.
"We need a smaller financial sector. We need to shrink the size of
the giant banks, impose meaningful restraints on compensation for
executives and highly paid employees (because pay packages incentivized
reckless risk-taking), impose a financial transaction tax, empower
consumers, and offer much more institutional support for community
development banks and credit unions."
Health care reform
"The richest country in the world spends far more than other wealthy
nations on healthcare (at least 50 percent more than every country
except Luxembourg) but sports middling health indicators. It permits 45
million people to live without health insurance, denying them access to
preventative and routine care, resulting in the death of 18,000 people
a year. It tolerates private health insurance companies making
life-and-death rationing decisions for millions of people with only
minimal accountability. It lets private health insurers refuse to take
sick people as customers and engage in endless manipulations to discard
its customers if they do become sick. It features a system in which
medical bills and illness contribute to almost two out of three
personal bankruptcies - even though three-quarters of these bankrupt
people had insurance when they became sick.
"There is a cure all for these ills. It is a Medicare-for-All,
single-payer system, in which everyone is guaranteed access to
healthcare as a matter of right and the government pays medical bills
(thus operating as the "single payer").
"Unfortunately, instead of advocating for this approach - which
President Obama supported as a state senator, and which he still says
would be superior if the system was being designed from scratch - the
Obama administration has sought to reach an accommodation with the
insurance industry, hospitals and Big Pharma."
Money in politics/public financing of elections
"We now have a president eager to take on the big issues -
healthcare, climate change, financial regulatory reform. But in each
case, things are going very wrong. That's because of excessive
corporate power in general, and the distorting power of corporate money
in politics in particular. Indeed, the extraordinarily serious problems
with health care, climate and the financial system are traceable in
large part to money in politics. Wall Street invested more than $5
billion in campaign contributions and lobbying in the decade preceding
the financial meltdown, for example. That money bought them a series of
deregulatory moves that paved the way for the financial meltdown. Now,
with it no longer possible to deny that these problems need addressing,
corporate money is working - all too successfully - to prevent
meaningful remedies.
"With the Citizens United case, the Supreme Court appears poised to
make a bad situation much worse. The court may permit corporations to
spend unlimited amounts of money from the company treasury to support
electoral candidates. Such a decision will unleash a tsunami of
corporate money - probably the best investment a business can make - to
slant elections in favor of corporate-friendly candidates. That money
not only will affect the outcome of races, it will further lead
candidates to engage in self-censorship when they risk offending
powerful business interests.
"Running effective campaigns that engage voters costs money. But it
is equally obvious that elections funded by private money give
disproportionate influence to the wealthy. The simple solution is to
treat elections as a public good (we do, after all, still have public
financing of the electoral apparatus itself) and to provide public
financing for candidates."
Pending free trade agreements
"Designed by the world's largest corporations, our global trading
system benefits those who designed it. Trading rules, including those
in existing and pending free trade agreements, strip power away from
democratically elected governments. Trade rules prevent our federal
government and our states (as well as other governments) from
protecting consumers and the environment. They interfere with efforts
to promote community development and the preservation of good-paying
jobs. They give pharmaceutical companies the right to price gouge the
world's poor, and help agribusiness eliminate family farms.
"When it comes to trade, we need a redirection. We need trade rules
that enhance democracy and ensure that trade advances rather than
undermines the things we want from an economy: safe products,
good-paying jobs and decent livelihoods, vibrant communities and a
healthy planet.
"The Trade Reform, Accountability, Development and Employment
(TRADE) Act offers us a way to achieve this redirection. There is
overwhelming public support for the course correction that the TRADE
Act would achieve; the only question is whether the public can be
organized to overcome the entrenched interests supporting the trade
status quo."
The state of the regulatory system
"Whether it comes to health and safety, environmental protection or
maintaining a working financial system that serves all people, our
regulatory system is broken. It is the victim of more than two decades
of deregulatory ideology, misguided court decisions, inappropriate
budget cutbacks, inappropriate reliance on partnership with industry,
distorted cost-benefit analyses and simple corporate capture.
"We need more funding for regulatory agencies - which more than pays
for itself in injuries and illness prevented, lives saved and
environmental space preserved. We need to validate the work of food
inspectors and drug regulators who help keep us safe. We need to ensure
regulatory independence, and empower and direct regulatory agencies to
prioritize their health, safety and related missions over accommodating
the industries they regulate. We need to make sure the courts remain
available for victims of corporate violence, irrespective of whether
their actions were blessed by regulators. And we need to organize and
create mechanisms so citizens can band together to hold regulators (and
the corporations they regulate) accountable."
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people - not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country.
(202) 588-1000LATEST NEWS
Senators Demand Answers About 'Reckless' Trump Admin Use of AI Social Security Chatbot
Artificial intelligence systems, the four senators argue, "represent a troubling pattern that if continued, would significantly impede Americans' ability" to access their benefits.
Jul 01, 2025
Four U.S. senators—three Democrats and Vermont Independent Bernie Sanders—demanded answers Tuesday from the Trump administration about its "reckless rollout" of artificial intelligence chatbot technology into phone systems "that have blocked people from accessing their earned Social Security benefits."
"These AI programs, which the agency deployed with little consultation with Congress, advocates, or other key stakeholders, appear to have been developed in haste and represent a troubling pattern that if continued, would significantly impede Americans' ability to access their Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits," the senators said in a letter to Social Security Administration (SSA) Commissioner Frank Bisignano.
While Sanders, Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden (Ore.), and Sens. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.) acknowledged that "AI can be a helpful tool to simplify some workloads," they contended that artificial intelligence "is not a panacea for all challenges facing SSA."
The letter continues:
SSA is entrusted with ensuring accurate and timely payment of mtore than $1 trillion in Social Security and SSI benefit payments to over 73 million seniors, individuals with disabilities, and their families each year. Considering the agency's important mission, it is critical that SSA is responsibly deploying any technology system, including AI. For example, whether incorporating newer technology like generative AI to improve customer experience and increase efficiency or leveraging predictive AI to provide disability examiners support in the disability determination process, it is critical that SSA meaningfully engage stakeholders, including its customers and employees, the advocacy community, and members of Congress, throughout the entire process to avoid harm to claimants and beneficiaries.
"The agency's hasty AI rollouts on its national 1-800 number phone system and the phone system for its 1,200 field offices, which resulted in significant impediments for Americans simply trying to access their earned benefits, demonstrate our concern," the senators wrote. "In April, SSA announced it would be deploying an anti-fraud AI algorithm to verify the identity of callers seeking to file for benefits on its national 1-800 number, arguing—without providing any evidence—that its telephone service was rife with fraud."
"However," the lawmakers noted, "the proposal was scrapped shortly after implementation after the system found it identified two claims out of over 110,000 as potentially fraudulent. Moreover, the new program slowed claim processing by 25% and led to a 'degradation of public service.'"
The senators are asking Bisignano to:
- Provide a detailed description of the new AI-based chatbot, including how it determines whether it has successfully answered a caller's questions before hanging up;
- Describe which metrics is SSA using to determine whether this AI-based chatbot is successful at improving service delivery at the national 1-800 number;
- Explain the metrics SSA used to evaluate the successes or challenges of this AI-based chatbot before rolling it out nationwide to field offices;
- Disclose which stakeholders, especially those who represent beneficiaries and employees, were consulted pre- and post-deployment of this AI-based chatbot;
- Explain whether SSA is planning to procure, develop, or implement any new AI systems this year; and
- If the answer to the above question is yes, list and provide a detailed description of these AI systems.
The AI rollout is part of Bisignano's "technology agenda" to boost productivity at SSA amid staffing and other cuts implemented by the Trump administration and its Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. In February, SSA announced its intent to fire 7,000 workers, or about 12% of its historically low staff.
Many SSA staffers also resigned, including nearly half of the agency's senior executives. This has adversely affected SSA beneficiaries. An analysis published last week by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities revealed that one SSA staff member must now serve 1,480 beneficiaries—over three times as many as in 1967.
Last week, Warren sent a letter to Bisignano—who one advocacy group described as "a Wall Street CEO with a long history of slashing the companies he runs to the bone"—accusing him of misleading the public about longer beneficiary wait times resulting from the Trump administration and DOGE taking a "chainsaw to Social Security."
Keep ReadingShow Less
House to Take Up GOP Megabill Serving 'Oil Company CEOs, Hedge Fund Donors, and Climate Deniers'
"Senate Republicans advanced the most anti-environment, anti-job, and anti-American bill in history," said one campaigner.
Jul 01, 2025
After U.S. Senate Republicans on Tuesday sent President Donald Trump's so-called "Big Beautiful Bill" back to the House of Representatives, defenders of the planet sounded the alarm on several provisions that remain in the massive budget reconciliation package.
"This is a vote that will live in infamy," said Greenpeace USA deputy climate program director John Noël after Vice President JD Vance broke a tie to advance the legislation. "This bill is what happens when a major political party, in the grips of a personality cult, teams up with oil company CEOs, hedge fund donors, and climate deniers. All you need to do is look at who benefits from actively undercutting the clean energy industry that is creating tens of thousands of jobs across political geographies."
"The megabill isn't about reform—it's about rewarding the superrich and doling out fossil fuel industry handouts, all while dismantling the social safety nets on which millions depend for stability," Noël added. "It is a bet against the future."
Although Sen. Mike Lee's (R-Utah) provision to force the sale of public lands as well as a proposed excise tax on wind and solar projects were removed, other controversial policies survived, including required onshore and offshore fossil fuel lease sales, mandates for timber harvesting, the recision of various Inflation Reduction Act funding, an end to a moratorium on new coal leasing, and attacks on clean energy.
"Make no mistake, while the Senate did not include a punitive new excise tax on wind and solar projects, the bill is still devastating for the clean energy transition," warned Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) president Gretchen Goldman. "The bill would spike energy costs, threaten energy reliability, and strand hundreds of billions of dollars in clean energy and transportation investments along with the tens of thousands of domestic jobs that come with them. The provisions attacking clean energy and clean transportation are not about the budget, but rather Congress using the budget bill to boost fossil fuels by crushing these booming new industries."
Sierra Club executive director Ben Jealous declared that "today, Senate Republicans advanced the most anti-environment, anti-job, and anti-American bill in history."
"This shortsighted plan will put lives at risk, endanger our growing economy, and raise electricity rates on families and small businesses," he said. "The proposal expands drilling on public lands and in the Arctic, guts cost-cutting clean energy investments and the thousands of stable jobs they've created, and includes massive giveaways to corporate polluters and the very wealthiest Americans."
Jealous celebrated that public outrage led to the federal land sales and excise tax provisions getting axed, but added that "even with those important changes, a terrible bill is still a terrible bill, and this proposal fails the American people in every measure."
Margie Alt, director of the Climate Action Campaign, also highlighted how the legislation—if signed into law—will benefit rich individuals and corporations while causing working-class Americans to lose their jobs and pay higher energy bills.
"The Senate has turned its back on our clean energy future, raising our utility bills while mortgaging our health and environment to deliver massive tax breaks for billionaires," Alt said. She warned of job losses and increased climate pollution, meaning "kids will struggle with asthma and other respiratory problems. And, more people will suffer from devastating extreme weather catastrophes."
Manish Bapna, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, similarly said that "with spiking power demand and rising bills, we need more clean, affordable American energy, but Senate Republicans just voted to kill jobs and deliver the largest utility bill increase in U.S. history."
"Every senator who voted for this bill chose tax cuts for the wealthiest over the rest of our health, pocketbooks, public lands and waters, and a safe climate," Bapna argued. "This is like Robin Hood in reverse. The very rich will get richer and the rest of us will have to pay the price."
After 27 hours, Republicans passed their Big Ugly Bill—a catastrophic assault on health care, food, and climate.They chose Trump and billionaires over families and our future.This fight isn't over. Now it’s the House’s turn to stop it.We can't agonize—we must organize.
[image or embed]
— Senator Ed Markey (@markey.senate.gov) July 1, 2025 at 1:22 PM
The bill not only "will race us toward climate catastrophe" while giving tax breaks to the wealthy, said Lisa Gilbert, co-president of the watchdog Public Citizen, it also "steals assistance from vulnerable Americans, the bill would supercharge Trump's barbaric mass deportation policy, and throw an extra $150 billion at Pentagon contractors."
"Any member of Congress with a conscience knows that this bill must not become law," she added. "It's time for the House to stand up to President Trump and vote against it."
The GOP-controlled House had already passed a version of the megabill before every Senate Republican but Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Rand Paul (Ky.), and Thom Tillis (N.C.) advanced the latest edition on Tuesday. Now, the lower chamber's leaders plan to take up the new version in hopes of sending it to Trump's desk by his July 4 deadline.
"House members got it wrong the first time but have another chance now to do their jobs," said Goldman of UCS. "They must reject this bill, voting with their constituents in mind, not simply to avoid the ire of the president."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Judge Slaps Down RFK Jr's Likely 'Unlawful' Mass Layoffs at HHS
"We're not going to let Trump and RFK Jr. dismantle our nation's health systems to promote conspiracy theories and tax breaks for billionaires," said Connecticut Attorney General William Tong.
Jul 01, 2025
A federal judge on Tuesday blocked planned mass layoffs at the Department of Health and Human Services while declaring that the firings were likely unlawful.
Judge Melissa DuBose of the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island ruled that the Trump administration exceeded its legal authority when it moved to lay off thousands of HHS employees on the grounds that such large-scale firings would leave the agency unable to fulfill its legislatively mandated duties that can only be altered by an act of Congress.
"The executive branch is vested with the power and is imbued with the responsibility to faithfully execute the laws which govern the governance structure of our country," wrote DuBose. "The executive branch does not have the authority to order, organize, or implement wholesale changes to the structure and function of the agencies created by Congress."
DuBose further noted that courts have the power to "set aside" actions taken by federal agencies that are "unlawful," and she argued that the actions taken by HHS under the leadership of Trump-appointed Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. likely flouted the law.
The judge granted a preliminary injunction against the agency and blocked it from carrying out its planned reduction in staffing that it first announced this past March 27. HHS has until July 11 to file a status report affirming compliance with the court's order.
The lawsuit was originally filed by the attorneys general of 19 states plus the District of Columbia, who alleged that the layoffs violated the United States Constitution's separation of powers doctrine, as well as the Constitution's appropriations clause and the Administrative Procedure Act that prohibits agencies from taking "arbitrary and capricious" actions.
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong took a victory lap in the wake of the ruling but cautioned that there was still a long fight ahead to save HHS.
President Donald Trump and Kennedy "are playing dangerous games with the health and safety of American families, and we just stopped them," he said. "Today's order means vital programs and services—including those supporting Head Start, disease monitoring at Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] and Medicaid eligibility, and others—will remain accessible. This is still the beginning of a long fight ahead, but we're not going to let Trump and RFK Jr. dismantle our nation's health systems to promote conspiracy theories and tax breaks for billionaires."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular