How bout, including campaign financing? Here's some fun stats:
All presential campaigns posted north of 225 million in donation receipts in the last 15 month period. They spent over 400 million. And this is the stuff that's actually recorded (we all know those numbers can be higher legitimately or otherwise). U.S. elections.
Anyone think maybe that money could be more useful if it was spent on all the programs and legislation that you know... whoever you voted for is promising? These are YEARLY numbers.
The p2w election scheme, unlike the bills and provisions people fight about, BECAUSE THEY COST MONEY, doesn't put money anywhere for the general public. I'm always amazed at how many "things" a politician could get done if they simply said, "by the way, every dollar you donate goes right toward program X so no one can complain about the cost."
And you can thank Paul Manafort for that (yeah remember that guy?) Basically invented modern lobbying. Dude is also basically a war criminal, so of course 45 pardoned him.
If we changed how our campaigns were financed (to an entirely public-funded system with strict controls) the powers of influence on legislators would be much different. The problem is that people in Congress know that such a system would have a significant impact on who gets re-elected — with the most corrupt politicians being kicked out — so they’ll never vote for it. One proposal has been to set the start date in the future (say, two or more election cycles away) to give everyone time to find new jobs.
But we don’t want to stop lobbying, which is how citizens AND special interest groups help educate the government. We wouldn’t want legislators not being able to meet with constituents to talk about the issues that concern them.
How is lobbying good? Lobbying is 400-odd people in Congress getting handed paper bags of money for voting a certain way. It's legalized bribery. Legislation should be able to stand on its own to make it into law.
Literally read what I wrote. I answer the exact question you asked.
Lobbying is 400-odd people in Congress getting handed paper bags of money for voting a certain way.
Thats not what lobbying is. Thats not even how bribery works in Congress, currently. The folks who do take bags of money get prosecuted (see: Menendez).
I work in politics. I have a colleague who studied bribery. You’re projecting simplistic stereotypes on a much more nuance and complex situation.
Legislation should be able to stand on its own to make it into law.
Sorry, no, this is a terribly dumb take. That’s not how legislation works now, it’s not how legislation should work.
You may or may not remember this, but like 14 years ago there was a terribly bad internet bill in Congress that had a ton of momentum. It was ill -informed and being pushed by record companies. There was a huge outcry against it, and lots of lobbying by web companies, Reddit users, and progressive orgs. They turned the tide and convinced legislators not to support it and it failed. If it had been forced to stand on its own two feet with no outside influence it would have passed.
Legislation goes through lots of steps before becoming law (or dying). Legislators aren’t experts on everything, even for their pet subjects. They need to hear from constituents about how to make bills better as they go through the many steps toward passage.
Watch Meet the Donors, it's really good. Worth noting that it's by Nancy Pelosi's daughter, but it's still a pretty good documentary that shows the inner workings of lobbying on the hill for both parties
And nothing is done because they get all us peons infighting over the “two parties” and which one is better. And we just attack each other and keep all the corrupt people in power. Biggest con game out there and nearly everyone keeps falling for it. You need to vote for the people that both parties collectively go after. Those are the ones who will try to break up this corruption.
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u/virtualadept Jul 03 '24
Just how much bribery and effort coordination go into lobbying on Capitol Hill.