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Lobbying is surprisingly cheap. We should probably pay our politicians way more, uncomfortable as that sounds to many.
by Ericson2314 4y ago
Lobbying 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.