This is in MILLIONS OF DOLLARS:
Posted on 12/12/2011 6:34:56 PM PST by Bokababe
By employing a plethora of tax-dodging techniques, 30 multi-million dollar American corporations expended more money lobbying Congress than they paid in federal income taxes between 2008 and 2010, ultimately spending approximately $400,000 every day -- including weekends -- during that three-year period to lobby lawmakers and influence political elections, according to a new report from the non-partisan Public Campaign....
(Excerpt) Read more at ibtimes.com ...
Palin, Malkin and others have it right when they basically say we need a new constitutional government void of corruption. It’s currently like a cancer metastasizing to every person in America. There’s something just wrong about this whole lobbying mess. I know that it’s always been “just how it works” but it’s wrong and needs to be changed.
BS.
Until the 16th Amendment was passed there was no individual income tax. I'd like to return to those days. Wouldn't you?
This is just great. Corporations spend a fortune to politicians to keep from being killed by regulations. Yet a government employee cannot accept a gift worth more than $20 from a corporation because it might influence them to act favorably to that corporation.
This is so wrong, in so many ways.
“but it’s wrong and needs to be changed.”
In an era where races for even rural congressional seats paying $167,000 a year cost one, two, and three MILLION dollars, every two years, or MORE, how do you reduce that influence?
Meg Whitman spent $150 MILLION dollars to lose the California Governor’s race, and was OUTSPENT.
Something else that's been going on for some time now is that many companies use government and the courts to suppress competition, and they actually spend more time, effort, and money on lobbying than on the development of new products.
Mark
Sure, if it doesn’t involve concealing the process of taxation behind the corporate wall.
Look, every able, adult individual should be responsible for funding the tax system; the citizenry is disconnected otherwise which makes for an apathetic society. Taxing corporations simply shifts responsibility away from the individual which is not what this Country is supposed to be about.
Corruption to the core.
$100,000 campaign expenditure cap for any office, print media all you want, one debate with your opponent, one "you tube" type video presenting your platform, no "attacks" of your opponent, just your platform and plans if elected. One term preferably, two terms max, no "retirement benefits" if you serve your full term. Go serve your term, then go home. Regular people, We the People, go to Washington to shrink the size of government and provide for our national defense.
One of those corporations had to be General Electric
I was reading an article about a month ago and the author described Congress as the Mafia. The two Parties were just like the Luccheses and Gambino Families-- they fight over turf, but but they were both Mafia clans who shake down the citizens and corporations for money like in any other criminal enterprise.
You read things like this and that model makes sense.
Even Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin praised it.
Lobbyists will go away when Congress members have nothing to offer these corporations in terms of limiting competition, mandates, special regulations or tax breaks. Corporate campaign financing of presidents and politicians will go away when candidates for office have nothing to give away -- and the politicians will once again belong to us.
Until then, there will always be corruption.
The Mafia is exactly the model I had in mind. I believe they call it “protection money.”
Such practices *should* have no place in government. But it seems that politicians (disproportionately those with a “D” after their names) make a game out of seeing how much corruption they can get away with. Feel-good stories like that of Blagojevich happen far too rarely.
Bingo.
For an example to buttress your argument, Microsoft had only a sales office in DC, no lobbyists, until the Justice Dept. went after them for antitrust. They then realized how potentially destructively powerful the Regulatory State could be and now have one of the largest lobbying offices around.
Knowledge is power. Thanks.
Crony Capitalism at is best. Feudal Capitalism in reality.
Lobbying should be considered price collusion.
This is in MILLIONS OF DOLLARS:
Yes, and just as a point of reference GE's "$10,560" Profit in $Million is actually "$10.56B", if I did the math right.
And then tie it all in with this, revealed by the partial Federal Reserve Audit, just using GE as an example:
I think that it shows just how far up the chain this corruption goes.
Ron Paul has been yelling about this for years -- finally some others like Perry have wrapped their brain around it and begun understanding it. Who is going to be clean enough and have the passion to do something about it? There are huge amounts of money in play with which to fool the sheeple and demonize anyone who tries to upset this shell game. But I really believe that we are doomed to lose it all-- and lose our country in the process -- unless someone does -- and soon, before the thieves take what's left of the money and the economy, and offshores it all out of our reach.
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