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Comment by vjvjvjvjghv

3 days ago

When you look at the donations politicians receive and the ROI they produce you quickly realize that they are way too cheap. Politicians should ask for way more money so lobbying is not that incredibly profitable.

9 comments

vjvjvjvjghv

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latexr  3 days ago

> Politicians should ask for way more money so lobbying is not that incredibly profitable.

Except those corrupt politicians want lobbying to be profitable, so they can profit from it too. And if they ask for too much, they’ll just bribe the next guy or may even try to put their own in office. Can’t have that!

  • cogman10  2 days ago

    Especially since they so often land jobs for themselves and their kids with the people that lobby them.

    Kirsten Sinema got a job as a senior lobbiest after her short congressional stint.

    • nerdponx  15 hours ago

      Synema is a particularly fun example because you can tell where her loyalties laid from her voting record.

  • c0balt  3 days ago

    Healthy competition, the free market has resolved the issues of overpriced bribes. /s

    • potato3732842  2 days ago

      I'm surprised that politicians haven't established burdensome and expensive professional compliance and licensure requirements for their own trade to restrict upstart competition. Every other trade pays them to implement the same so it's not like they're not familiar with how to do it.

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nerdponx  15 hours ago

The individual bribes aren't the whole picture. The bribes are statements of loyalty. If I am reliably donating to your campaign every couple of years, then I am probably not donating to your opponents' campaigns.

And loyalty seems particularly important with the current administration, because they have an agenda full of things that are illegal or otherwise unsavory and un-American, so they need a nation run by loyal henchmen if the agenda is to succeed.