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THE GROUPS INVOLVED IN THE
Occupy Wall Street movement
argued that the government
showered benefits on wealthy
corporations and individuals,
while ordinary Americans
(“the 99%”) struggled. They
claimed that lobbying efforts
by corporations influenced
government policy.D
ESPITE DISAGREEING ABOUT ASPECTS OF AMERICAN politics and public
policy, one thing that the groups involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement
generally opposed was the federal government’s bailout in 2008 and 2009 of
major banks and fi nancial institutions. The federal bailouts, they argue, rewarded
the same fi rms whose actions had caused widespread economic distress in the
fi rst place—distress that made the bailouts crucial to the fi rms’ survival. These
disgruntled groups also agree on why the bailout occurred: it was the result of
intense lobbying efforts by the corporations that stood to gain from a bailout.
In the protesting groups’ view, lobbying enabled these fi rms to achieve a change
in government policy that made them vastly better off—in some cases, saved
them from going bankrupt—at the expense of most of the American public,
many of whom lost their jobs or saw their home values plummet but received no
bailouts.
There seems to be evidence to support these claims. An analysis conducted
by the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) argued that a fi rm’s success in
getting funds from the government’s principal bailout program, the Troubled
Assets Relief Program (TARP), hinged on the fi rm’s lobbying efforts. Twenty-
fi ve fi rms spent a total of $114 million on lobbying in 2008 and received a total
of $295 billion from TARP. Many of the fi rms that spent a lot on lobbying, such
as AIG, Citigroup, and Bank of America, received some of the higher TARP
allocations. As the head of the CRP put it, “Even in the best economic times,
you won’t fi nd an investment with a greater payoff than what these companies