February 18, 2009 11:51AM # Stimulus Lobbying Watch By [David Boaz](https://www.cato.org/people/david-boaz) --- SHARE [Tim Carney](http://www.dcexaminer.com/politics/Obamas-stimulus-The-Lobbyist-Enrichment-Act-39753637.html) has more details on some companies that hired lobbyists specifically to get a piece of the kitchen-sink spending bill: > For example, the National Association of Home Builders hired Baker & Hostetler a week after Barack Obama’s inauguration to lobby explicitly on the stimulus bill, which, in the end, included an $8,000 credit for home purchases. > > > Better Place Inc. is an electric car company that hired its first lobbyist — Steve McBee, a former staffer for House appropriator Norm Dicks, D‑Wash. — to push for electric car incentives in the stimulus. The resulting cornucopia included an expanded tax credit for plug-in cars, $2 billion in funding for electric car batteries and $400 million to build an electric car infrastructure, complete with recharging stations. > > > Media giant Time Warner added to its lobbying army, hiring the firm Parven Pomper Strategies to lobby for broadband subsidies in the bill. These subsidies included $2.5 billion to underwrite loans to get broadband out to rural areas and an additional $4.7 billion in spending on other broadband projects. Similarly, network giant Cisco Systems lobbied for the broadband subsidies in H.R. 1. Carney calls it “The Lobbyist Enrichment Act.” I wrote about “[Obama’s K Street Recovery Plan](https://www.cato.org/2009/02/17/obamas-k-street-recovery-plan/)” a couple of days ago. ##### Related Tags [Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics), [Tax and Budget Policy](https://www.cato.org/tax-budget-policy) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).