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Why Political Lobbying is Allowed & Encouraged - Defending the Indefensible - How Money Works - YouTube
Channel: How Money Works
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3.5 billion dollars were spent on political
lobbying in 2019 alone.
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Whatâs more is that political donations
funded presidential add campaigns that topped
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14 billion dollars.
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These astronomical sums are not reserved for
the big leagues of federal politics either,
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every year vast fortunes are spent influencing
policy decisions from, the oval office and
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federal congress all the way down to local
city councils.
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But why is this allowed?
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Political lobbying combined with huge campaign
contributions from wealthy individuals and
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companies has started to seem tantamount to
bribery, where the best interests of the voting
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public are seconded to who can write the biggest
donation cheque fundamentally undermining
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democratic processesâŠ.
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Right?
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Well itâs time to defend the indefensible
by learning how money works to influence politics
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and why we should want it to stay like this.
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Now before we get into the actual arguments
in favor of pollical lobbying and campaign
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contributions we need to get one thing out
of the way.
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That is that all of this is the law⊠the
first amendment as discerned by the US supreme
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court protects politicians and their supporters
right to speak freely on political issues
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and in support or opposition of political
individuals, parties or ideas.
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This right to free speech extends to using
any legal means necessary to promote those
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ideas as loudly as possible.
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Now whether spending money really counts as
a form of speech is still a bit contentious,
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but hey I would like to think the supreme
court is more qualified to make that decision
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than you or I.
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Setting all that aside lets explore why (constitutionally
mandated or not), this whole process might
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still be a really good thing.
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So to get things started we need to make a
distinction between political lobbying and
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political donations, because they are two
separate things.
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Political Donations are pretty straight forward,
it is the financial contributions paid to
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a political party or candidate for them to
use on their election or re-election campaigns.
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Political Lobbying is a little bit different,
it involves special interest groups operating
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to actively sway the decision making process
of a politician, a party or the entire government.
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It sounds pretty nefarious on the surface,
but think of it like thisâŠ
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If you have ever attended something as simple
as a town hall meeting, to voice your opinion
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on what should happen to abandoned lot 48,
well then you have engaged in political lobbying.
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Political lobbying does not need to involve
money at all and it normally doesnât.
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but
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The larger special interest groups that take
lobbying much more seriously will normally
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be funded by large institutions or extremely
wealthy individuals.
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This money will be used for a few things.
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It will normally be used to create some kind
of awareness about the group, it will be used
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to pay for office facilities and it will be
used to pay the salaries of people that basically
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turn complaining in a public forum into a
full time job.
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Of course this money can also be used for
donations⊠now technically this canât
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be transactional, an agreement of something
like $200,000 for a yes vote on an upcoming
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bill would be illegal.
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But thatâs where that marketing from earlier
comes in because lobbyists really walk this
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rule right up to the line.
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If a special interest lobbying group named
Americans For Lower Taxes makes a contribution
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to your political campaign and you later publicly
vote to support new capital gains tax legislation,
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well it should be pretty obvious to you that
you arenât getting anymore donations from
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them in the future, and chances are they will
probably fund your opponent instead⊠good
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luck.
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The types of people that can afford to fund
these organisations tend to have different
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objectives from the common man, and sometimes
those objectives would even be at odds with
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what the majority might want.
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So obviously this is a pretty gross misuse
of financial dominance to subvert the outcome
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of the democratic process, right?
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Well not necessarily.
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For starters a good chunk of this money still
does come from regular people but more so
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than that, these organisations are actually
limited in HOW they can make these donations.
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Right of the bat federal law does not allow
corporations to donate money directly to political
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candidates so they need to find alternatives.
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So what they do instead is use what is known
as âsoft moneyâ
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These institutions will pay to have a presence
in Washington and a working personal relationship
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with lawmakers through their agents.
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These agents can work as experts on certain
issues and even draft legislation for lawmakers
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to put before congress.
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Again this might sound bad but in reality
our political system relies on these agents
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to operate effectively.
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I donât know if you have noticed but a lot
of lawmakers are f s.
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A majority of them are ex lawyers at best,
or cranky old businessmen looking for something
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to do in retirement at worst.
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Imagine if you put the issue of something
like âencrypted data collectionâ in front
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of your grandparents to debate over and you
might start to see the issue.
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Sometimes these guys have no idea what they
are legislating.
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For what itâs worth thatâs fine, itâs
impossible to expect all lawmakers to be experts
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on all things which is why they are free to
ask for help.
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A political lobbyist from the tech space will
be able to explain in depth the ramifications
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of a proposed piece of legislation.
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They will also be able to speak about this
using the kind of legalese jargon that only
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lawmakers, lawyers and judges really understand
but is still important for creating robust
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legislation.
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Of course these lobbyists are paid by tech
companies so they will always try to spin
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any proposal in favour of the tech companies
they represent but lawmakers know this, and
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a good ongoing relationship requires a bit
of honesty from these lobbyist otherwise the
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politicians arenât going to ask for their
help anymore.
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Now you might say well why donât we just
pay to have public experts advise politicians
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in order to take out the special interests
of these pieces of advice?
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Well you might be able to guess it, that would
be really expensive, people that are qualified
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enough to speak with confidence on the legislative
process while also being experts on topics
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ranging from technology to medical research,
all the way up to environmental sustainability
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attract fat salaries.
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You would also need lotâs of them, because
not all of them are going to be experts on
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all issues.
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You would also need enough to go around between
all of the lawmakers considering an important
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issue.
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Itâs just not feasibleâŠ
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But perhaps this is all skirting around the
main issue.
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As hard as I try to defend it, there are loopholes
in place that allows massive piles of money
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to flow into election campaigns that are costing
more money than most peoples entire extended
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family will see in 100 lifetimes.
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Ok but consider the alternatives.
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There ARE a few options here
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State funded election campaigns
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Exclusively self-funded campaigns
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Or no funding allowed at allâŠ
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Lets start with that last one.
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Some groups have floated the idea of eliminating
campaign funding all together.
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Instead candidates would be invited to attend
a series of public forums where they could
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debate issues and that would be the extent
of the process.
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The problem here is that it disproportionally
favours incumbent lawmakers because they will
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be the person that people know.
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By the same logic it also favours people who
have a strong public image outside of politics,
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eg celebrities, and if there is one thing
we donât need it is more celebrities in
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politics.
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It also doesnât necessarily stop someone
else with a big audience swinging the result
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of an election.
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Think of someone like Casey Neistat who made
two videos supporting Hillary Clinton and
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Joe Biden in their respective presidential
elections.
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He was well within his rights to do this of
course (first amendment and all that good
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stuff)⊠but he could get that message out
to millions of potentially undecided voters,
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and if the actual politicians didnât have
a platform to share their counter argument,
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well then politics would quickly turn into
a game of who has the most famous friends.
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Well ok, what if instead the government gave
these candidates a budget that they could
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spend anyway they liked on promoting their
campaign.
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Sure it might cost taxpayer dollars but maybe
that is worth it to get corporate influence
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out of politics.
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The problem is, how do you distribute this
money?
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You could distribute it to parties based on
the seats they currently hold in government,
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but this can cause drastic and irreversible
chain reactions that favour one party over
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another.
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If one part has a really good election cycle
they would get more money in the next election
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and likely win more seats which would give
them more money in the election after and
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so on until they control the entire government.
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The other alternative is just to give money
to every candidate, but this causes other
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issue, mostly people just running for office
to get money from the government.
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Now some states actually run what are called
âclean electionsâ which is basically what
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has been described here, and this problem
of non-serious competitors is a really big
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deal.
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If this became widespread enough people could
just make it their full-time job to run for
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every election out there and secure themselves
some campaign funding.
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Now you might say this sound simple to solve,
just throw these fraudulent candidates in
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jail, and yeah sure I suppose that could work,
buuuuttt no great government in history relied
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on throwing political candidates in prison
in order to run proper elections.
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Alright alright, what about only allowing
self-funded election campaigns.
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Well this is the worst solution of the bunch,
this is how you get nothing but billionaires
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being president, because they are the only
ones that can afford to pay for all the tv
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ads, rallies and public appearances across
the country.
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The current system of political lobbying is
far from perfect, and yes there do look to
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be some policy decisions made in the past
that work more to secure political funding
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more so than acting in the best interests
of the public, but as the great Winston Churchill
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once said, itâs the worst system of government,
except for all of the alternatives.
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⊠This was the second video in our series
of defending industries that look to be indefensible,
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if you enjoyed this topic go watch the first
video in this series which defended the multi-level
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marketing industry and explored how they have
managed to avoid being classed as pyramid
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schemes, despite clearly being pyramid schemes.
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