The Best “Democracy” Money Can Buy: For Every Dollar Spent Influencing US Politics, Corporations Get $760 Back

Editor’s Note: Still think your vote matters? Is it really any shock that 91% of the time, the candidate not with the most experience or the best voting record for his or her constituency but with the most money wins?

The first time we read the recent analysis by the Sunlight Foundation in which it combed through 14 million corporate records, including data on campaign contributions, lobbying expenditures, federal budget allocations and spending, in order to determine the “rate of return” on lobbying and spending to buy political goodwill, we were left speechless.

To be sure, we had previously shown that when it comes to the rate of return on lobbying, the rates were simply staggering, and ranged anywhere between 5,900% for oil subsidies, to 22,000% for multinational tax breaks and even higher for America’s legal drug dealers.

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But nothing could prepare us for this.

According to the foundation’s analysis, between 2007 and 2012, 200 of America’s most politically active corporations spent a combined $5.8 billion (with a B) on federal lobbying and campaign contributions. What they gave pales compared to what those same corporations got: $4.4 trillion (with aT) in federal business and support.

Putting that in context, the $4.4 trillion total represents two-thirds of the $6.5 trillion that individual taxpayers paid into the federal treasury. Said otherwise, by “spending: a paltry $6 billion to bribe the US government, or just a little more than what GM will spend on stock buybacks alone, US corporations are getting the direct benefit of two-thirds of US taxpayers’ labor!

And here is the visual representation of this stunning finding: for every dollar spent on influencing politics, the nation’s most politically active corporations received $760 from the government.

(read more at Zero Hedge)