American Politics Today - Essentials (3rd Ed)

238 CHAPTER 8|INTEREST GROUPS

meetings on Capitol Hill, and spent additional money on broader publicity eff orts.

Ultimately, Boeing won the contract.

The disclosure data in Table 8.1 reveal the big spenders. Dominating the list are

corporations like General Electric and business groups such as the U.S. Chamber

of Commerce. Of General Electric’s $11.4 million spent on lobbying in 2006, more

than $8 million was spent on GE employees, and the remaining $3 million paid

for the services of fourteen lobbying fi rms.^16 Most interest groups or corporations

spend much less on lobbying eff orts. The Sierra Club, for example, spent less than

$100,000 on lobbying in 2006.^17 Many other groups barely scrape together enough

cash to send someone to plead their case in Washington.

Other companies lobby through their membership in trade associations.

Consider the National Beer Wholesalers Association (NBWA), a nationwide

group of local businesses that buy beer from brewers and resell it to stores and

restaurants. The NBWA’s principal lobbying goal is to ensure that laws remain

in place requiring middlemen between beer producers and the stores, bars, and

restaura nts that sel l beer to consumers. If the r u les cha nge to a l low beer produc-

ers to deal with the end-sellers directly, then the NBWA’s members are out of

a job.

Although the amount of money spent on lobbying by interest groups may seem

like a lot, it is small compared to how much is at stake.^18 The federal government

now spends more than $3 trillion every year. In recent years, spending by inter-

est groups and by the lobbying arms of organizations and corporations has totaled

$3  billion every year. That’s a lot of money, but it’s still only about 0.1 percent of

Source: Center for Responsive Politics, “Total Lobbying Spending,” http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/index.php; “Lobby-

ing Database,” http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/index.php (accessed 1/30/12).

TOTAL SPENDING ON LOBBYING, 2000–2011

These data show that in recent years, interest groups have spent several billion dollars

lobbying the federal government. Does this amount seem surprisingly large or surprisingly

small, given what lobbyists do?

$1

2000

$1.54

2001 2002 2003

Expenditures (billions)

2004 2005 2006 2007

$2

$3

$4

2008 2009 2010 2011

$3.27

FIGURE » 8.1

trade association An interest
group composed of companies in
the same business or industry (the
same “trade”) that lobbies for poli-
cies that benefi t members of the
group.