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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

What kind of money do you think is involved?

Enough money to exclude the little guy?

2017 lobbying, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/01/23...

  Google $18M
  Amazon $13M
  Facebook $11M
  Apple $7M

That’s so little money compared to the size of the companies, and consistent with what I said elsewhere—it’s money used to pay lobbyists for making PowerPoint presentations on tech policy. That may or may not be bad because smaller players can’t afford similar influence, but it’s not the greasing palms that people think of when they rail against lobbying.

I suppose the actual corruption happens in the revolving door - politicians gain benefits afterward from the industry. Either you are in or out - and if you are in, there are lot of post political perks to be gained. The lobbyists role in all of this is to communicate what the corporations want, and formulate it into a message the politicians can sell to their constituencies with a straight face.

When I worked for Lucent I met someone who described himself as a "project management expert" at a regional conference. I thought, "holy shit I suck as project manager I should talk to this guy." Upon inquiry, I learned that he hadn't been on a project in years, and actually didn't teach any project management classes either. Ballast. After I related my confusion to someone else, I got a "Ssshhhh! That guy is some Senator's cousin. They have to keep him on for five years after the Senator leaves office." I.e., his job was more secure than that of literally anyone else at the conference. Did Lucent receive some consideration for this accommodation? Have they and Ma Bell done the same thing for decades?

Our system is composed of mutually revolving fictions. We pretend that campaign finance isn't corrupt, and we also pretend that all corruption that takes place is in the form of campaign finance.

"...we also pretend that all corruption that takes place is in the form of campaign finance."

I thought the revolving door principle was a known deficit in the western style political system (contra some others where politicians just get direct 'gifts').

Maybe not, then?

Sure, I think that's corrupt. Not everyone agrees with me. For instance, there are lots of FCC fans on HN, and that body is built on the revolving door.

It doesn't take much money to influence politics in the US. It's confusing in that sense but politicians are often caught taking very small 5 and 6-figure bribes.

A number of years ago I figured out the required budget to pay for the entirety of the winning campaigns for the most expensive 51% of senators and representatives. IIRC it came out to a quarter's profits for one of the megacorporations.

That was before SuperPACs were widespread, which make it easy to spread that money around.

The surprising thing used to be how cheaply politicians can be bought, and now it's how that can be done so legally.

Isn’t that a huge red flag to your conclusion, though? Generally (legal) avenues for outsize returns don’t just sit around waiting to be exploited cheaply. Look at how much VC money is chasing below market returns. We’re supposed to believe that lobbying yields huge returns but megacorps like Yahoo are investing just $10-20 million a year on it?

Don't assume that lobbying is the only form of corruption. There's lots of illegal stuff too. Federal officials seem reluctant to investigate more than sporadically. It's almost as if self-interest affects their actions too.

In the context ("level playing field") of this sub-thread, that money is enough to tilt the playing field, not only against little guys, but against other large corporations.

What if instead of paying money to buy votes, companies could donate funds to fund programs and initiatives instead? I suppose this wouldn't quite work because the reality is that these companies are paying for laws and regulation to entrench their current status by making it more difficult for new comers and competitors.

Stanford Law professor Joseph Bankman actually made a go at getting this changed. As seen on CBS's Sunday Morning last weekend (8 April 2018).

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/taxes-is-there-a-better-way/

* I'm not sure why the actually video of the segment isn't also available.

Campaign contributions, for one.

Lobbying has little to do with campaign contributions. Lobbyists are limited to $2,300 like everyone else. Especially corporate lobbying, because corporate campaign contributions to candidates are banned.

Money in lobbying is almost entirely paying lobbyists to make PowerPoint presentations to staffers: https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/06_lobb....

Tell me more about the limits on contributions?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/supreme-court-strike...

https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/summary?cid=...

Neither of your links counter what rayiner said. The first specifically says the per-candidate, per-election limits were left in place. The second is just a sum total of all the contributions to Paul Ryan over his federal political career (which has nothing to do with the limits on individual contributors). Neither says that lobbyists have any different limits than I do.

The WaPo article addresses a ban on aggregate contributions to multiple candidates, not a single candidate.

OpenSecrets very misleadingly attributes all contributions from a company’s employees to the company itself. It’s propaganda.

It would be misleading if there weren't so many cases of corporate officers acting as bagmen for their political causes.

When a high paid lobbyist shows up to advocate for a position, the idea that it’s just that lobbyist’s personal contribution speaking is silly. Whoever spent all that money on their salary will also find (generally legal) ways to get way more than $2300 to the relevant politicians. There are PACs, all the other members of the lobbying firm, executives at the companies that contribute to the lobbying group, etc. Think of the lobbying operation as in part a signal “a bunch of people put a bunch of money in play to send me here”. Your opinion implies that all these people can’t put 2+2 together.

I’m not even a big believer in the idea that our elections are bought and sold. We get roughly the government we idiots vote for. And an underlooked fact is that we elect inexperienced people to office, give them inexperienced staff, have them vote on topics they often barely understand (think of anything tech related). One big part of what lobbyists do is just show up with fancy talking points designed to appeal to the particular legislator. But denying that there’s a lot of money sloshing around doesn’t make sense.

You don't think money or favors change hands under the table frequently? It would elsewhere in the world, I have trouble believing US politicians are so honest as to not be on the take.

I do not. US bribery laws are among the most strict in the world (including relative to Europe) and prosecutions are common. Just last year a sitting US senator was tried for bribery charges (which ended in a mistrial because the jury couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict).

I somewhat agree with you. The US does have a great system in place, and I believe that in the US we're most likely to catch bribery when it occurs, if not close. However, the fact that catching bribery is common means that bribery is even more common than that. You just can't get around the fact that politicians are people and people are vulnerable to bribery.

Doesn’t need to. Campaign finance is legal and crazy cheap for the outcomes achieved. Typically tens of thousands to get millions or billions in breaks and pork.

That’s a self-defeating assertion. If legal campaign donations were so high return, more companies would make them, driving up the price. You’re presupposing the existence of this enormous arbitrage opportunity that nobody is talking advantage of, because...?

Shit, I can swing “tens of thousands.” Can you tell me how to get “millions” in pork? Shouldn’t YC companies just blow the $120,000 they get in campaign contributions?

Sure they do. You also need connected lobbists who understand how things work (which costs money), but the kickbacks ultimately are clearly worth it or they wouldn’t do it. American democracy is bought and sold to the highest bidder — the high end lobbists usually even write the bills that get voted on [1]!

Look how little Koch brothers pay to discredit most scientists and majorly influence the direction of this country:

https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/recips.php?cycle=2018&id=D0...

[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2013/11/11/24397...

Your post suffers from major cognitive dissonance. The economy “is bought and sold to the highest bidder”—but the bids are so low! Total lobbying expenditures is under $3 billion per year, equivalent to just 48 minutes of annual US corporate profits. If lobbying results in such high returns, why do the Koch brothers have to spend so little money to get results? It’s not like there aren’t folks with money in the other side of those issues: certainly, plenty of folks who can spend a few million here and there.

Think about it: Top lobbying firms pull in under $50 million a year in revenue. If they were really controlling access to billions in government pork and favors, shouldn’t they be able to charge a lot more?

You could invest $50k in lobbying and $70k in getting procurement paperwork done and build a fantastic book of business with government.

You just wouldn’t meet VC growth targets.

Or you could spend millions to get billions like the F-35: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/f-35s...

This is based on?

Nearly two decades in the space.

The biggest barriers to small companies doing business with government is lack of access and lack of understanding of the process.

A good procurement lobbyist and attorney can make a huge difference.

You cannot argue against reality with hypotheticals. Present reality is as stupid as described.

The GP's opinion isn't reality, and the argument was based on the false assertion that thousands begets millions (or more).

This is similar to the people that tell me, "perpetual energy machines exist, but the fossil fuel industry is suppressing them"

Not opinion — go look on any database of campaign contributions and see the dollar amounts from biggies like Google, Exxon, Koch brothers, Disney, Coca-Cola, etc.

A mere combined 800k in contributions to many politicians allowed Disney to further extend the copyright life of Mickey Mouse: https://research.chicagobooth.edu/-/media/research/stigler/p...

So you’re saying that it would’ve taken just $800,001 to block that copyright extension? Because whoever challenged it in the Supreme Court likely spent more than that in just legal fees doing so.

Paying lawyers a bunch of money might increase cocaine sales in the area but it gets nobody elected.

If the 800k +1 was from a group with staying power likely to contribute more in the future maybe

The kind of money that wins an election.

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