Google forked out a whopping $16m on govt lobbying last year Google has once again proved it is Silicon Valley's biggest lobbying spender, splashing out more than $16m (£11.2m) for the second year running in its attempts to bend the ear of government. The data is from records for 2015 analysed by non-profit group Consumer Watch, which monitors the lobbying activities of Silicon Valley's …
At the risk of sounding terminally cynical, that does not sound like a lot these days. I take it lobbying spend is tax-deductible? Does this figure also reflect the high-profile ex-employees of Google that are being parachuted into government "spad" posts or the "researchers" given to government at no cost?
I don't know for sure whether that's just for the US, but if it were so, then consider that there are 435 elected officials in the US Congress and 100 Senators in the US Senate. So that's 535 people.
Now take the 11.2 million pounds and divide by 535 peeps, and you get 20,934 some pounds per official. That's about 29,800 US dollars. Really, it seems that our elected officials are selling us down the river for WAY TOO CHEAP.
They do not value our rights, our votes, our constitution highly enough. I'd feel much better if they sold us out for like a meeeellion dollars per each bribe, oops, I mean donation to the re-election campaign or PAC (Political Action committee).
But there is hope: Given that it's that cheap, relatively speaking, any grass-roots political organization can likely come up with $30,000 per each politician, and walk in, and say: Here Mr. Politician, we got $30,000, while these other cheap skates only got you $29,800, so who are you gonna listen to, us or them?
But wait, there is less hope, because the above would likely result in a bidding war, and we all know
how the "deepest pockets win" in that, so may be that's not how it's going to work. Seems it would be
enormously more profitable for politicians to publicly sell off their voting powers, in an "open outcry fashion", instead of the usual "hush-hush affair". I can just see it and hear it: "That gentleman from the Oil Industry just offered me 3 million pounds for my vote, to vote for the complete destruction of the planet, so do I hear a higher bid from the environmental gentle person on the left, yes, you can save the planet for just 3 million and 100,000 pounds, $3,100,000 is all it takes, do I hear more?" "What?"
"3 million and 25,000 pounds?" - "Sorry no, the minimum increment is 100,000 pounds now, we can't waste time with itsy bitsy increments, really!" - - - Ok, 3 million and 100,000 pounds it is to the wonderful gentle person, yes, yes, congrats, winning bid, fantastic, money well spent!" On to the next vote now! -
Sometimes my imagination just runs way ahead of me...
Google has their own PAC, which contributes directly to various candidates and is covered by various disclosure laws. I'm not sure how much more that adds, but that that's an important second type of funding.
Lobbying is just paying people who are mostly ex congressmen / congressional staffers to talk to their former colleagues about laws their clients want passed. What Google wants may overlap to a large extent with what Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and IBM want, so a lobbyist who gets funds from all doesn't say "here's what Google wants" he says "here's what I want". The congressman may not even know on whose behalf he's working for (not that Google cares, as long as they get what they want) These direct contributions are basically giving them money they spend on getting themselves re-elected.
There's a third type of money too - other perks that aren't listed in FEC disclosures but congressmen etc. have to disclose separately (at least in some cases, though I'm sure there are ways around it) i.e. if Google's CEO takes a few Senators to Ireland on some type of loosely defined 'fact finding mission' where they just happen to believe a few important facts might be found in a five star hotel and on some of the world's top golf courses. Now that's a bribe.
There's actually a fourth type which is a special type of PAC that doesn't have to report where the money came from that the Supreme Court opened up a few years back. No way of knowing if Google (or Apple, or Facebook or whoever) has these because there is no transparency. They can't give money directly to a candidate but they can run ads to support their position. So if they wanted more H1-B Visas they could run ads in support of that and let you know which candidates have the "right" and "wrong" position on the issue.
Unfortunately lobbying is just the tip of the iceberg. Its just that it has the most stringent reporting requirements so it is easier to put a number on and write a story about.
I agree! You can't possibly buy 500-odd congresstards and thousands of state legislatards with $16M. They're not all that dumb. This must be salaries for a few dozen lobbyists to do precision targeted wining'n'dining with influential yet gullible 'tards. (And as others commentards have pointed out, the 16M does not include the campaign contributions which are the real bribes)
A few emails from the likes of us could actually be enough to counter whatever BS the lobbyists are feeding the pols.
They paid Apple about a billion to keep Google search the default on iDevices, according to a report on the beeb.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-35380696
16 megabucks really is nothing to these folk.
Edit - the report is here too. Hadn't seen the article here, but I find that more interesting, especially the alleged cover up.
At $491B Google is America's second largest corporation by market cap and one of the largest in the world. Their products are difficult to understand. It takes a lot of education of politicians to get progress on their key issues like network neutrality.
$16M is not much at all.
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