lobbying costs a lot

and in fact, it appears to cost even more as the years pass. i dumped yearly lobbying spending data for top sectors into swivel. why do you suppose it’s so expensive to make things happen on k street?

businesses should collaborate to come up with some kinds of guidelines on spending on lobbying firms. lobbyists would be forced to accept them (because all their customers are acting as one entity) or go out of business. businesses could then lobby for less. any difference would simply be consumed in checks to yours truly for my obvious brilliance in solving this problem of excessive spending.*

* there may be several logical fallacies in my strategerie, but for now it pleases me to ignore these fallacies.

but seriously, influence costs a lot.