Lobbying in the Us

Imagine a government where special interest groups that have many times more money than the President of the US work behind the scenes to “influence legislation” and “inform the lawmakers” about the ramifications of a particular piece of legislation and whether or not it should be passed. Organizations called lobbyists promote the interests of these select groups, sometimes at the detriment to the American people. Health insurance lobbyists work to cut down any measure to reform the health care system that will benefit the American public, giant biochemical firms like Mon Santo work ceaselessly to stop new regulations on pesticides and growth hormones from being passed, international corporations prevent laws that punish companies that ship jobs overseas, and big businesses fight against a new national minimum wage or one that is indexed to inflation. In 2011, the Chamber of Commerce paid $180,000 to Michael Mukasey, former US attourney general, to weaken the "over-burdensome" Federal Corrupt Practices Act (Economist 78). The list is endless. In fact, this is well-known common sense knowledge; when legislation by an expansive and powerful federal government has the potential to make a major dent in profit margins, it would be strange if those affected didn’t act to change or stop said legislation, especially when the sole reason that the groups (that are affected by the legislation) exist is to increase their bottom line. Americans are entitled to join organizations that have political agendas. Therefore making lobbying illegal itself shouldn't be the route we take because doing so will violate our 1st amendments' right to petition the government, will likely make the activity of lobbyists more secretive, and will trample lobbyists of grass-roots movements that promote the public interests (such as gay-rights, abolitionist of slavery, and environmental-care lobbyists). Instead lobbyists should have all their lobbying expenses fully disclosed to the public in order...