<story><title>Intuit pouring money into lobbying amid push for free government-run tax filing</title><url>https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2023/02/turbotax-parent-company-intuit-is-pouring-more-money-than-ever-into-lobbying-amid-push-for-free-government-run-tax-filing/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>peteforde</author><text>In the meta, this article reminds me of what I perceive as a surreal disconnect between the amount of influence lobbyists have in government(s) vs the objectively small amount of money that actually is changing hands.&lt;p&gt;If Intuit spends (just) $3.5M to significantly impact decisions that are worth Billions to them and potentially hundreds to every taxpayer (!), I think I&amp;#x27;m frustrated that corrupt politicians aren&amp;#x27;t doing more to leverage their corruption.&lt;p&gt;This kind of illegal influence should cost... at least $100M? Selling everyone out for fractions of a penny on the dollar is frankly just kind of embarrassing.&lt;p&gt;Crime harder, elected reps, if you&amp;#x27;re going to get out of bed.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Aunche</author><text>Most people have a fundamental misunderstanding of how lobbying works. Lobbying money is used to pay the actual lobbyists to gather evidence, prepare presentations, and draft legislation proposals. Only a small percentage of lobbying money goes to the politicians. Usually, it&amp;#x27;s $1000 or so that the politician will agree to hear out the lobbyist. What actually gets traded at these lobbyist meetings is political capital, not money. &amp;quot;If you agree to these tax incentives, you can brag about creating 10,000 jobs&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;This is why Bill Gates can&amp;#x27;t just spend $1 billion to lobby for a carbon tax, despite advocating for one. This would cause a lot of short term pain as the economy needs to readjust with no short term positive benefit, which would be politically disastrous.&lt;p&gt;Edit: Here&amp;#x27;s another more tangible example. Facebook spent  millions to lobby for the government to establish standards for social media. If they can convince the Democrats to formalize guidelines of what constitutes as hate speech, they can offload some of the burden of their moderation decisions. If they can convince Republicans to require social media to become public square, that&amp;#x27;s even better because then they don&amp;#x27;t have to hire as many moderators. Unfortunately for Facebook, such a bill has no benefit from either side because now the politicians have to take responsibility for an unpopular act of censorship or viral misinformation campaign. That&amp;#x27;s why Facebook tried to establish an independent &amp;quot;supreme court&amp;quot; instead.</text></comment>
<story><title>Intuit pouring money into lobbying amid push for free government-run tax filing</title><url>https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2023/02/turbotax-parent-company-intuit-is-pouring-more-money-than-ever-into-lobbying-amid-push-for-free-government-run-tax-filing/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>peteforde</author><text>In the meta, this article reminds me of what I perceive as a surreal disconnect between the amount of influence lobbyists have in government(s) vs the objectively small amount of money that actually is changing hands.&lt;p&gt;If Intuit spends (just) $3.5M to significantly impact decisions that are worth Billions to them and potentially hundreds to every taxpayer (!), I think I&amp;#x27;m frustrated that corrupt politicians aren&amp;#x27;t doing more to leverage their corruption.&lt;p&gt;This kind of illegal influence should cost... at least $100M? Selling everyone out for fractions of a penny on the dollar is frankly just kind of embarrassing.&lt;p&gt;Crime harder, elected reps, if you&amp;#x27;re going to get out of bed.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pessimizer</author><text>Politicians are very cheap, but the $3.5M is what was spent legally and openly. Most of the iceberg is hidden underwater. For example, this:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; In 2022, several members of Congress called for investigations into the company’s practice of hiring “revolving door” lobbyists who previously held government positions&lt;p&gt;is also bribery.</text></comment>