Reason #33: Sex in the Lobby

One of the main ways corporations influence our government is by using lobbyists. Some 35,000 of these paid persuaders prowl Washington DC now, bending politicians’ ears on behalf of big corporations and doling out fat checks for the next election. That works out to about 65 lobbyists for every member of congress. All told, corporations and other interest groups shelled out $2.8 billion in federal lobbyist fees in 2007. But that’s just in Washington. Lobbying is a boom industry at all levels of government. In the 42 states that reported lobbying expenditures for 2004, almost $1 billion was spent on lobbying state legislators and other politicians.

The whole thing is one big money-go-round. Corporations give out cash to elect politicians. This generosity buys their lobbyists “access” to those politicians once they’re in office. The lobbyists tell the lawmakers what their bosses want in terms of legislation and, almost always, the lawmakers comply. That completes the cycle, as corporations save huge amounts of money when regulations are relaxed or reap windfalls on public contracts and law changes, like the pharmaceutical industry with the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit.

Not surprisingly, drug manufacturers spend more on lobbyists than any other industry. From 1998-2005, they invested a whopping $900 million on K-Street mouthpieces. Of course, that’s a pittance compared to the hundreds of billions in revenues they earned during that same period from the overpriced pills our politicians allowed them to peddle.

NEXT: Reason #34: Washington’s Money-Go-Round