Barney Frank goes for a spin on the high road

Peter Roberson, a former staffer for the House Financial Services Committee, may have thought he was moving up in the world when he became a lobbyist for Intercontinental Exchange. But that's not the way his old boss saw it. In a rare break with the Hill's back-scratching culture, Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., criticized his former staffer for taking the new job. And Frank did so in the bluntest possible terms, telling Roberson not to show his face around his former boss's committee.

Were everyone on Capitol Hill to follow Frank's example, it would dramatically change the paradigm of public service as a mere steppingstone to a cushy K Street job. It would jam up Washington's revolving door, by which public officials do favors for rent-seeking companies and industries, which later reward them with highly lucrative lobbying gigs. Every year, hundreds of staffers pass through this door, often with their bosses' approval and encouragement, and sometimes to join former bosses who've previously done so. They use their access on behalf of their new employers, while raising industry money for their old patrons.

It's a system that works for everyone involved -- everyone except the taxpayers and consumers who pay for it all. Thus, it was no surprise last summer when theWashington Post reported more than 350 former staffers and members of Congress had been hired to lobby on Obamacare. When the bill passed through the Senate Finance Committee chaired by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., the biggest special interests in the health care field were represented at the bargaining table by two former Baucus chiefs of staff.