[richbell]

> You honestly think tens of millions in lobbying efforts cause a tens of billions return on investment? Why is it so insanely cheap?

This is exactly how lobbying works, and it's depressing how insanely cheap our countries are being sold for.

- https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/01/06/144737864/forg...

- https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2019/05/14/how...

For example, if a corporation doesn't like that the IRS is scrutinizing them they can just lobby congress to gut the IRS.

https://www.propublica.org/article/the-irs-decided-to-get-to...

Think you can have an effect by contacting your elected officials? Public preference has almost no impact on what legislation gets passed. Not to mention all the gerrymandering...

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...

[jobgh]

Your first two sources are just comparing spending to returns. It doesn't address the hard question which is about causality.

A better explanation for The American Jobs Creation Act is probably the fact that republicans support lower taxes, and they won in 2016.

Regarding the Microsoft case with the IRS, perhaps the fact that everyone hates the IRS is a better explanation?

>Public preference has almost no impact on what legislation gets passed. Why would it have a significant impact? We don't pass laws by poll.

>Not to mention all the gerrymandering This one seems real from what I've seen, but I need to look into it more, and I don't think it should be tied very closely to money in politics.