| | McCain says he would ban administration members from lobbying
 "I think there are too many lobbyists in Washington," Senator McCain told Politico on Wednesday, following his town hall meeting in Las Cruces, New Mexico, adding that he would enforce a lifetime ban on lobbying for members of his administration.
"Whenever there's a corrupt system, then you're going to have these birds of prey descend on it to get their share of the spoils," the GOP hopeful said. "I would not allow anyone who worked for my administration to go back to lobbying," he added. "They would have to make that pledge."
Earmarks, on which McCain assailed his Democratic opponent, are "the symptom of a disease," McCain said. "Senator Obama has asked for nearly a billion dollars in earmarked pork-barrel projects," he said. "And he rails against lobbyists? I've never taken a single one."
Stopping earmarks and "pork-barrel spending" will effectively stop lobbyists, McCain said. "As long as you have earmarking and pork-barrel spending and bridges to nowhere and money for DNA of bears in Montana and museums and all that, then you're going to have lobbyists...They’d all be out of business – most of 'em would be out of business if we stopped pork-barrel and earmark spending."
On his heavily criticized answer to Pastor Rick Warren at the Saturday Saddleback Church forum, where he defined "rich" as an income of $5 million, McCain said that "I define rich in other ways besides income...Some people are wealthy and rich in their lives and their children and their ability to educate them. Others are poor if they're billionaires."
The entire Politico interview can be read HERE.
|
