How to Get Your Perk Into a Bill

Jack Abramoff: “Whether you’re a company, a union, or an individual, to get your bennie–your perk–into a bill, the first thing you need to do is find a bill that’s going to get signed by the president. Ninety-nine percent of what’s proposed in Congress doesn’t make it to the White House, so you’re looking for one of the few bills that’s going to make it all the way through the House, the Senate, the conference committees, and wind up on the president’s desk. We call that a moving train. If you’re a lobbyist pushing something like this, you want your moving train to be a 2,000-plus-page bill. You want to find a way to sneak your bennie into a teeny boxcar in the back that nobody’s going to notice.”