Get ready to PAC its time to visit the Self Licking Ice Cream Cone Factory.

Here is a rough outline of how these things run. Gizmo Corporation is the world's largest manufacturer of Gizmos. The Gizmo Corporation is a US Corporation with Corporate Headquarters on Main Street. Obviously Main Street resides in a city and a state in these great United States, so Gizmo Corporation has two Senators and one Congressman (or Congresswoman) associated with Corporate Headquarters. For really large companies, like Gizmo Corporation, they may have facilities in many states (increasing the ability to support politicians who can help them).

Through various means, some legal and some not, the US Government develops specifications for Gizmos to be purchased by the Government. As luck would have it these specifications can only be met by Gizmo Corporation, so when Congress passes a budget for purchasing Gizmos, only one company can win the contract bid (even though everyone pretends that the bid process for Gizmos is open and honest, we now know otherwise).

Here comes the Self Licking part. Someone in Government has to develop these specifications, for Military related items let us say Colonel Goldbrick is in charge of the unit that uses the most Gizmos. As such he is in the best position to understand all aspects of the need for Gizmos and how they can be improved in the future to meet the needs of the Military. Also Col. Gizmo and his team, by necessity, work hand in hand with Gizmo Corporation to ensure delivery, provide feedback, etc. Clearly when Col. Goldbrick retires he would provide invaluable information to Gizmo Corporation as a person with instant credibility to work with the Military on their Gizmo needs. Col. Goldbrick retires and goes to work for Gizmo Corporation as a Senior Vice President. Col. Greenbacks as the new commander works hand in hand with the now retired Col. Goldbrick on all things Gizmo related. Col. Greenbacks is not an idiot and works towards retirement with an eye on a lucrative Gizmo position upon retirement.

Col. Goldbricks, as a respected member of the military and now a captain of industry marches up capital hill with a briefcase full of checks and a Bill to be turned into law by congress, The Gizmos for American Jobs Act.

This process results in a never ending cycle of pay for favors, get favors, get contracts, pay for more favors, get more favors, get more contracts, pay even more, etc.

This doesn't have to be all bad if the Gizmos in question actually represent the Best Value for the Government, but sadly this is almost never the case. Additionally any attempt by Small Business to produce a better Gizmo is pretty much unilaterally slaughtered. Most of the time new technologies are buried and the developers run out of Dodge or worse, in some rare instances the small entities are purchased by the larger companies and the technology eventually makes it into the hands of the users, more times than not it won't be till after the investment in old Gizmos is paid off.

Imagine this process replicated over every product purchased by the Government in every State and every Congressional district in the United States and you can start to appreciate the power of the PAC's and the moral bankruptcy we are dealing with.