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Yea I've always found it odd when people blame bad legislation on corporate lobbyists. Lobbyists don't pass laws, politicians do. Directing your anger towards l

Yea I've always found it odd when people blame bad legislation on corporate lobbyists. Lobbyists don't pass laws, politicians do. Directing your anger towards lobbyists is literally giving your politicians a free pass. If a politician accepts a bribe, the politician should be the one taking the heat (along with the system that enabled this to happen), not the one giving the bribe. For example, tax filing in the U.S. could be as simple as you verifying the information they already have on you, saving you from the time and hassle of having to fill everything out yourself (often through software like TurboTax that costs money). Many countries already do this. But anytime I read an article on the subject, the narrative is that we're stuck with the status quo because companies like TurboTax with a vested financial interest in making tax filing difficult have fought tooth and nail to keep your tax filing difficult. Uh...no, this is not why we don't have simpler tax filing, it's because crooked and/or clueless politicians aren't voting it through Congress.

JDiculous 8y ago
Found another one in the news today: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/2/13/18223836/paid-line-standing-congress-ocasio-cortez-homelessness https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/2/13/18223836/p... A Senator introduced a bill in 2007 to ban line-standing, a bill that never ended up leaving committee. "The line-standing industry quickly rallied against the proposal. The owner of Linestanding.com submitted testimony that argued McCaskill’s bill would eliminate “an industry that employs hundreds of entry-level workers, and instead creating positions for even more lobbyists, the bill would have the opposite effect of that intended. It wouldn’t change the composition of who ultimately sat in hearing rooms; it would simply increase costs for all involved.”" So politicians stop the passage of a law to ban line-standing, and we're supposed to feel that it's the lobbyists' fault rather than that of the politicians who prevented the bills passage? I guess politicians can do whatever they want and receive no accountability for their voting because the media has decided that politicians are immune and the lobbyists will take all the heat.
senderista 8y ago
I disagree. Politicians, like everyone else, simply respond to incentives. As long as the incentives aren't changed, it doesn't matter much who's in office. Changing the incentives in this case means limiting corporate contributions to politicians, for starters.

JDiculous 8y ago

Found another one in the news today: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/2/13/18223836/paid-line-standing-congress-ocasio-cortez-homelessness https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/2/13/18223836/p... A Senator introduced a bill in 2007 to ban line-standing, a bill that never ended up leaving committee. "The line-standing industry quickly rallied against the proposal. The owner of Linestanding.com submitted testimony that argued McCaskill’s bill would eliminate “an industry that employs hundreds of entry-level workers, and instead creating positions for even more lobbyists, the bill would have the opposite effect of that intended. It wouldn’t change the composition of who ultimately sat in hearing rooms; it would simply increase costs for all involved.”" So politicians stop the passage of a law to ban line-standing, and we're supposed to feel that it's the lobbyists' fault rather than that of the politicians who prevented the bills passage? I guess politicians can do whatever they want and receive no accountability for their voting because the media has decided that politicians are immune and the lobbyists will take all the heat.

senderista 8y ago

I disagree. Politicians, like everyone else, simply respond to incentives. As long as the incentives aren't changed, it doesn't matter much who's in office. Changing the incentives in this case means limiting corporate contributions to politicians, for starters.