

Google & Facebook Set Company Records for Lobbyist Spending - tilt
http://mashable.com/2011/07/21/google-facebook-set-company-records-for-lobbyist-spending/

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zbanks
The title is a bit misleading at first glance: each company is setting records
_against previous quarters of the company itself_ , not compared to every
other company in the US.

Honestly, this doesn't seem like big news: each company is undergoing growth
and it makes sense that they're spending more on a lot of things: including
lobbying.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Totally agree, it is sort of non-news.

Now at $2M/quarter and with nearly 500 congress critters that means they are
investing about $4000 per. I've always felt the PAC expense would be naturally
limited by how much money could be moved into the system. Given total spending
by PACs [1] on various causes I expect any member of congress can populate
their re-election fund with anywhere from 1 to 8M$/year by 'listening' to
their concerns.

[1] <http://www.fec.gov/data/>

