Where's my outrage? On April 1st, 60 minutes "exposed" the lobbying influence of the pharmaceutical industry, by citing the Center for Public Integrity's latest discovery that Big Pharma invested $182 million in lobbying in the 18 months to June 2006.

Really?  That's all? 45 cents per American per year?  Pretty trivial when you consider that a drug maker can't change a burnt-out light bulb without regulatory approval. OK, that's an exaggeration, but every aspect of research & development, from designing clinical trials to launching a drug on the market, is subject to complete government control.  How they communicate with doctors and patients is subject to government control (in violation of the First Amendment). And their freedom to manage international distrubution of their products, taken for granted in pretty much every other industry, is challenged by legislators and the court of public opinion. (This is largely because the pharma lobby continues to use the term "importation" for the cross-border piracy that many politicians, both Democratic and Republican favor, and allows opponents to do the same, thus confusing this business with free trade.)

But the big outrage, of course, is the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003, which brought us the Medicare Part D drug benefit, and the "non-interference" clause that forbids the government from dictating drug prices directly.  I have always thought that the pharmaceutical industry erred in supporting this bill - short term gain for serious long term pain, and Nancy Pelosi is proving me right. (Another "outrage" exposed by 60 Minutes was that the pharma lobby "wrote the bill" itself.  Big news: almost all bills, expecially the successful ones, are actually written by lobbyists. Congressmen don't even read them before they vote.)

Does anyone really think that the "outrage" over Big Pharma would diminish if the government dictated drug prices directly?  No way: the Center for Public Integrity's other big target is the "Windfalls of War" (i.e. the dough that the Military Industrial Complex is raking in from Iraq, etc.) And the Pentagon manages these contracts directly.

The real difference is that the federal government needs to run the military, it does not need to run health care.  The reason Big Pharma spends more money lobbying every year is because the government takes more control of our health care every year. When we shrink Big Government, we'll shrink Big Lobbying.