Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/01/22/google-spent-150-million-on.html
‘Federal disclosures filed late Tuesday reveal Amazon and Facebook each spent roughly $17 million to battle back Washington in 2019’
1 Like
$150,000,000 over 10 years means Google spent more every single day - including Sundays and Christmas Days - than the median US wage earner gets in a year. Before tax.
Then there’s the lobbying by Amazon, and Facebook, &c.
Voting is 100% more effective than complaining on the internet, but buying politicians is 100% more effective than bothering with what consumers think.
4 Likes
I disagree, Voting costs you nothing in cash and it’s infinite, lobbying cost cash / time / effort, etc. and is completely finite, or one might say they hit a level of diminishing returns at some point.
You’re welcome.
I assume this is more than they pay in taxes.
1 Like
PEANUTS!
Healthcare -related lobbying hits $555M in 2017 — 6 statistics on lobbying in healthcare . Healthcare lobbying spending consistently outpaced other sector-related lobbying year after year, and in 2017, the healthcare lobby spent $555 million, according to OpenSecrets.org, a group which tracks spending in politics.Jan 31, 2018
BOTH parties take the money. Yeah, no wonder we can’t get everyone covered.
1 Like
It’s not buying politicians (that’s what PACs are for), it’s more subtle than that. Legislation in general, and especially when it involves tech, has lots of arcane details. In order to navigate the issues you need knowledge and expertise, and when that’s lacking in a commitee or a congressperson’s office that’s where the lobbyists step in. So when you, say, need to figure out what going on with anti-trust in tech there’s a guy from Google who’s more than happy to tell you all about it, and of course it’s going to be from Google’s perspective (totes an overblown problem, here are some charts proving it!).
As much as anything the problem is lack of congressional staffing and that staff being underpaid, and that in turn is a nice legacy of the Gingrich revolution. If there was still an Office of Technology Assessment congress would have less of a need to listen to those tech lobbyists.
2 Likes
The US DoD’s JEDI contract is worth $10 billion, so a few hundred million here or there to secure such contracts is just the cost of doing business. Think of it like marketing.
(Although Google aren’t up for that particular contract any more).
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
