Some Quick Lobby Numbers

In 2008, companies and interest groups spent at least $3.42 billion to lobby Congress and the Federal Government. That’s really just another dollar amount to us at this point. Let’s look at it this way: that equates to 68,400 jobs with a gross pay of $50,000.

What did those billions buy instead of jobs? Upwards of $100 billion in tax savings. That’s $100 billion of their fair share of the tax burden that they didn’t have to pay. Why? Because they pimped out some minions to seduce law makers.  How many $50,000 dollar jobs could the government fund for a year with that extra tax money? Two million.

Now, I know it’s a lot more complicated than that. I’ve written about the pros and mostly cons of lobbying in these pages. It just makes me sick that only the well-heeled, who don’t need these sorts of breaks, get these sorts of breaks. Worse, not only don’t the rest of us get to play, we are the ones that end up footing the bill.

Lobby reform is really pretty easy in concept: don’t allow paid influence peddlers to have access to that representative. Also, anyone seeking an audience with a representative needs to be a constituent of that representative. Seriously. Some Washington lawyer hired by a firm in New York but incorporated in Delaware shouldn’t have unfettered access to a congressman from Utah. That is not representative government—it’s plutocracy.