Do banks own the legislative branch?

This piece from Salon by Greg Greenwald says yes. It is an entertaining read, pulling from a satisfying variety of sources.

One part of the “who owns government” debate that always frustrates me is the fact that we don’t have access to officials’ thoughts. Do they really make conscious decisions with, for example, a future lobbying position in mind? If this is really the case, it seems unbelievably wicked (as well as peculiar – why not go into those fields to begin with? It seems less stressful to get an MBA than to go through the electoral process and make everyone hate you). Or, do people in government do all sorts of things, and then firms pick out the ones that happened to be in line with them the most, perhaps for coincidental reasons? Or, as many people believe, do you simply have to sell yourself to rich people in order to run successful campaigns? It’s hard to analyze this question without a study that is both massively broad and nuanced enough in particular cases. Thomas Ferguson’s work is an excellent example of the kind of work critics should do more often.

What would be really useful is if the National Security Archive or some similar organization could acquire Blagojevich-style records of officials directly plotting their futures, but also giving minute-by-minute updates on their internal motivations.