Trego's Mountain Ear

"Serving North Lincoln County"

Tag: Thinking Government

  • When Congress is for Sale

    I saw some comments about NRA buying Congress – and I got to thinking that someone must have the data on who it really is that buys congresscritters.  I got this list from opensecrets.org

    Lobbying ClientTotal Spent
    AARP$3,530,000
    AbbVie Inc$3,980,000
    Amazon.com$5,310,000
    America’s Health Insurance Plans$4,680,000
    American Hospital Assn$6,598,718
    American Medical Assn$6,665,000
    Blue Cross/Blue Shield$7,572,485
    Business Roundtable$4,820,000
    Cigna Corp$3,630,000
    ConocoPhillips$4,600,000
    CTIA$3,660,000
    CVS Health$3,720,000
    General Motors$4,900,000
    Meta$5,390,000
    National Assn of Realtors$12,190,052
    Northrop Grumman$4,530,000
    Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America$8,285,000
    Roche Holdings$3,565,000
    United Parcel Service$4,300,000
    US Chamber of Commerce$19,060,000

    The National Rifle Association didn’t make the big spender list – 19 million for the Chamber of Commerce, 12 million for the Realtor’s – General Motors just a touch under 5 million . . . I think I remember Barack Obama firing the president of GM.  AARP for 3 ½ million . . . and adding up the different health insurance lobbying bills with the hospital association, AMA, and pharmaceutical bill comes to 37.5 million.  I suspect we do have the best health laws money can buy.

    Still, Statista says NRA is getting close to making the list – 2021 lobbying expenses went up to 3.31 million dollars, from 2.2 million in 2020.  If this increase in NRA lobbying continues, they may knock AARP off the big spenders spreadsheet.  It will take more effort to dislodge Amazon or UPS.

    I don’t have the answers here, or even enough information to come up with a question.  I do have a conclusion – if there wasn’t a payoff to lobbying Congress, these corporations wouldn’t be doing it.  UPS spends 4.3 million bucks lobbying Congress because the investment pays off.  Amazon spends 5.3 million because the investment pays off.

    I’m not particularly happy with Wayne LaPierre and his cronies at NRA – the data from New York has convinced me that the management is ripping off the members.  I’m not surprised – Eric Hoffer said “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”

    Hoffer was likely correct.  Still health insurance is probably a bigger racket.  I suspect every outfit on the spreadsheet could be improved by a RICO investigation or three.

  • Thinking Government- Machiavelli

     Max Weber provided the simplest definition: “A government is an institution that holds a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence.”  Another, fancier way he phrased it is “A state is a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.”  I kind of like using Weber’s perspectives on government and bureaucracy.

    One of the classic writers on government was Machiavelli. 

    I must at the beginning observe that some of the writers on politics distinguished three kinds of government, viz., the monarchical, the aristocratic, and the democratic; and maintain that the legislators of a people must choose from these three the one that seems most suitable.  Other authors, wiser according to the opinion of many, count six kinds of government, three of which are very bad, and three good in themselves, but so liable to be corrupted that they become absolutely bad.  The three good ones are those we just named, the three bad ones result from the degradation of the other three, and each of them resembles its corresponding original, so that the transition from the one to the other is very easy.

    Thus monarchy becomes tyranny; aristocracy lapses into oligarchy; and the popular government lapses readily into licentiousness.  So that a legislator who gives to a state which he founds, either of these three forms of government, constitutes it but for a brief time; for no precautions can prevent either one of the three that are reputed good, from degenerating into its opposite kind, so great are in those attractions and resemblances between the good and the evil.”

     Niccolo Machiavelli, Discourses

    There is more to Machiavelli than his simple quotations – but I’ll end with one: “Princes and governments are far more dangerous than other elements within society.” –Niccolo Machiavelli