[imajoredinecon]

Reading that transcript actually left me thinking the system worked okay in this particular case, even though it led to a bad (in my opinion) policy outcome. The money bought access, not results: in the end, the legislators who voted against largely it did so because of personal belief the policy was bad or because of political pressure from an important campaign group (+), not because of money from Intuit (and it didn't take too much in absolute terms---$140K at full price---to equalize the lobbying power of a single-person pet project with that of a multibillion-dollar company with a strong vested interest in seeing the legislation defeated).

(+): I'm not personally a Grover Norquist fan, but he's influential because a lot of Americans really don't like taxes, and the argument that people will be more opposed to taxes if they're more burdensome does seem internally consistent.

[pstuart]

Nobody likes taxes, and Norquist just makes it more painful. Ideologues are jerks.

[nobody9999]

>Nobody likes taxes, and Norquist just makes it more painful. Ideologues are jerks.

Not nobody. I'm one of the ones who agrees with (purportedly) Oliver Wendell Holmes[0].

[0] "I like to pay taxes. With them I buy civilization." Source: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/04/13/taxes-civilize/

[pstuart]

I'm ok with paying taxes (for the reason cited) but I don't like paying them. And part of that is the inconvenience that Norquist has worked to ensure.