It doesn't take much money to influence politics in the US. It's confusing in that sense but politicians are often caught taking very small 5 and 6-figure bribes.
A number of years ago I figured out the required budget to pay for the entirety of the winning campaigns for the most expensive 51% of senators and representatives. IIRC it came out to a quarter's profits for one of the megacorporations.
That was before SuperPACs were widespread, which make it easy to spread that money around.
The surprising thing used to be how cheaply politicians can be bought, and now it's how that can be done so legally.
Isn’t that a huge red flag to your conclusion, though? Generally (legal) avenues for outsize returns don’t just sit around waiting to be exploited cheaply. Look at how much VC money is chasing below market returns. We’re supposed to believe that lobbying yields huge returns but megacorps like Yahoo are investing just $10-20 million a year on it?
Don't assume that lobbying is the only form of corruption. There's lots of illegal stuff too. Federal officials seem reluctant to investigate more than sporadically. It's almost as if self-interest affects their actions too.
That was before SuperPACs were widespread, which make it easy to spread that money around.
The surprising thing used to be how cheaply politicians can be bought, and now it's how that can be done so legally.