The Obama years have so far been a predictable boom-time for the army of anti-regulation lobbyists paid by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The
Center for Responsive Politics reports that the Chamber spent $276 million over the past two years lobbying against, among other things, health care reform, environmental protections and Wall Street regulations. The Chamber is the number-one spender on lobbying this year as in years past, but it is outdoing itself, setting records in its own outrageous largess. In just the last three months of 2010, the Chamber spent $50.9 million on lobbying at the federal, state and grassroots levels. That's a step down from last year, when in the last financial quarter as health and financial industry reform were being discussed in DC, the Chamber spent $79 million from October through December to defeat or water-down Democratic legislation.