The April 2010 edition of The Carver Files is now available for immediate purchase and download.

Resolved: On balance, government employee labor unions have a positive impact on the United States.

Even though most of the evidence out there regarding lobbying and the health care debate centers around the influence of big corporations, it turns out there is a tremendous amount of money being spent on the other side as well. From a recent NY Times article written by Katharine Seelye…

“Those who favored an overhaul spent more on advertising than those who opposed it — $99.5 million compared with $85 million, Mr. Tracey said. (The rest was spent on peripheral issues in the health care debate without advocating for or against the overall effort.)”

Full Article

If you haven’t noticed, I enjoy finding the cheesiest pictures possible for my posts.

The film mentioned in the last post, Thank You For Smoking is a great way to understand lobbying as well as how to argue both sides of an issue effectively.  In this case, Nick Naylor played by Aaron Eckhardt is a lobbyist forced to defend the tobacco industry.  This clip shows you how to think critically when you may be defending something that appears indefensible.