One More Washington Regulator Cashes in at Your Expense

[Commentary] Federal Communications Commissioner Meredith Atwell Baker will reportedly depart the agency in June to occupy a corner office at Comcast-NBC -- the company whose multi-billion mega-merger she approved just months ago. In so doing she joins a long line of "public servants" who have spun government jobs into gold at the expense of the American people they're supposed to represent.

Many have found the FCC to be a particularly lucrative launching pad. Former FCC Chairman Michael Powell now earns millions as the top lobbyist for the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, a trade group that lobbies for the industry he was tasked to regulate. Commissioner Baker's move to Comcast comes less than four months after she voted to approve the cable giant's takeover of NBC Universal. As recently as March, she gave a speech lamenting that the agency's review of the Comcast-NBC deal "took too long." With behavior like this it's little wonder that American people are so nauseated by business as usual in Washington. Inside the Beltway, the complete capture of government by industry barely raises any eyebrows. Outside of Washington, people of every political stripe have expressed near unanimous contempt for a system of government that favors powerful corporations at the expense of the many.