But that was then. Federal law enacted in 1978 requires a one-year hiatus between government work and lobbying, and that statute remains in place. Perhaps an executive order by the new Bush administration should specify something like a two-year lobbying ban. Certainly, it is only natural that skill or knowledge gained while in government service should command a premium in the private market. Paul Light, an official of the Brookings Institution, a centrist Washington think tank, agreed that the five-year ban may have been too punitive.
Administrations ought to live by the rules they set.
The situation ought to be one of many reviewed by the new Bush administration.