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Comment by eloff | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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?

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

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.

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?

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