Revolving Door Project

The Revolving Door Project (RDP) scrutinizes executive branch appointees to ensure they use their office to serve the broad public interest, rather than to entrench corporate power or seek personal advancement. Many of the deep rules that govern our rigged economy are written within the executive branch and outside the purview of most of civil society. From the semi-independent bureaus of the Treasury Department (the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the IRS) to the Federal Reserve, OMB, FTC, and beyond, executive branch personnel play a significant role in determining the fundamental rules that govern our economy. The Revolving Door Project educates civil society in order to counteract the advantage that Wall Street and corporate America have in this rule writing process. We do this by alerting and educating the media and activists when hardworking people are being taken advantage of and clarifying by whom. If we want the executive branch to write rules that structure the economy away from rent extraction and in the direction of greater economic equality, we need to ensure the right people hold key executive branch positions like the Treasury Secretary and SEC Commissioner. The executive branch needs to empower dedicated civil servants rather than self-interested people rotating between relatively short stints in government and longer stints in the very industries they’re supposed to regulate.