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If Intuit can get results with < $4m in lobbying that's an incredible rate of return. They made $2,066m in net income last year. For the influence they've clea
by cheriot 4y ago
If Intuit can get results with < $4m in lobbying that's an incredible rate of return. They made $2,066m in net income last year.
For the influence they've clearly had there's got to be other money flows.
- Ericson2314 4y agoLobbying is surprisingly cheap. We should probably pay our politicians way more, uncomfortable as that sounds to many.
- gowld 4y agoOr we could put them in jail for corruption, for much cheaper.
- dangwhy 4y agolobbying isn't corruption.
- firebaze 4y agoCould you educate me about the difference? As far as I know, commonly lobbying means funding the whole party instead of an individual person. Also, lobbyists are usually required to register somewhere, which seems to be mainly a ceremonial thing. Until now, having looked up on that quite a few times, I haven't spotted a to-the-point summary of what's really the separating line other than these two points.
- nielsbot 4y agoIt absolutely is a form of corruption: paying money to influence our government. Being charitable: it definitely looks like corruption and we should avoid even the appearance of corruption.
- __derek__ 4y agoMaybe. A public corruption trial would likely take a few years and cost seven figures, then the Federal Government's cost to imprison someone is ~$36k per year.[1] [1]: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/09/01/2021-18800/annual-determination-of-average-cost-of-incarceration-fee-coif https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/09/01/2021-18...
- mrguyorama 4y agoThe supreme court's opinion on political spending means you cannot just make the current system of lobbying illegal, because SCOTUS will just strike that law down.
- dangwhy 4y ago> We should probably pay our politicians way more Lobbying is legal though. I am not sure if thats case because we want politicians to make money.
- notch898a 4y agoI would use sortition instead of elections and then pay them 95th percentile salary, plus 4 years of the average of their last N years private salary upon returning to the private workforce for retraining and reintegration. Elections are basically a mixture of corruption-fest to curry favors and a popular contest and the skills needed to get elected have almost nothing to do with the skills needed to do the job. Just get a random but large enough sample of the populace.
- Ericson2314 4y agoYeah they need to be: - paid enough during not to care about the bribe - paid enough after not to care about loosing the next election
- 1270018080 4y agoCorporations will just bribe more, they can afford it. I don't think the public can outspend them.