What are interest groups? 345was spent on lobbying in 2017. The amount spent as well as the number of groups lobbying
government increased significantly from 2000 to 2010 and has held steady since then.
Why are there so many interest groups and registered lobbyists, and why are their
numbers increasing? Figure 10.1 (bottom) suggests that this proliferation is related
to the large size and widespread influence of the federal government. Simply put,
the federal government does so many things and spends so much money that many
individuals, organizations, and corporations have strong incentives for lobbying:
corporations may lobby for a government contract or for regulations that favor
their business sector. Corporations may also lobby to prevent new regulations or
reverse existing rules that hurt their profits: in the first two months of the Trump
administration, Congress reversed 14 regulations that were passed at the end of
Obama’s presidency, and 67 environmental rules were overturned in Trump’s first
year.^6 Energy companies lobbied hard on the Keystone XL pipeline, offshore drilling
in the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, and calculations of the social cost of carbon, and
they won. While business dominates lobbying spending, individuals may lobby the
government to place limits on what citizens can do or to relax restrictions on behavior—
or to change corporate behavior. Trade unions and single-issue groups also spend
millions of dollars on lobbying.
Studies of Washington-based lobbying operations confirm this: interest groups are
more likely to form around issues that have high levels of government involvement
or when new programs or changes in government policy are likely.^7 Moreover, as
groups form on one side of a policy question and start to lobby, people who oppose
them may form their own interest groups and start lobbying as well, either separately
or in concert.^8 The pressure of lobbying is especially strong when new policies are
under consideration, such as in the move to direct student loans. Firms such as Sallie
Mae had always lobbied elected officials and bureaucrats, but the prospect of losing
lucrative student loan operations gave these institutions a strong incentive to increase
their efforts. In fact, the data show that over the last 15 years Sallie Mae spent over $40
million on direct lobbying, and even more was spent by associations and other groups
that the firm was a member of.
Expenditures on lobbying pay for many things. For example, while engineers at
the Lockheed Martin Corporation worked to build the new F-35 fighter-attack plane
for the military, Lockheed’s lobbyists were working to ensure that the program
retained its government funding and that Lockheed had government approval for
exporting the plane to other countries. These meetings involved members of Congress,
congressional staff, senior members of President Bush’s (and later Obama’s) staff, and
the leaders of labor unions whose members worked for Lockheed.^9 Lockheed also ran
ads in newspapers in Washington, D.C., promoting its new warplane. Thus, to support
its goal of F-35 sales, Lockheed paid the salaries of its employees who planned and
executed the lobbying effort, paid for outside lobbyists and their meetings on Capitol
Hill, and spent money on broader publicity efforts.
Figure 10.2 shows lobbying expenditures for several different firms and associations
for the last two years with complete data (2016–2017). Four associations were the highest
spenders on lobbying during this time. It’s not hard to imagine why each group devotes
so much effort to lobbying: realtors, for example, might be concerned about maintaining
government policies that make it almost essential to hire a realtor to help buy or sell a
home. While the $129 million the National Association of Realtors spent on lobbying may
sound like a lot, it really isn’t that much. After all, over a million people work in real estate,
generating billions of dollars in profits every year. The surprise is that real estate brokers
are willing to spend only a tiny fraction of their profits to keep their near monopoly in
place. The same is true for the large firms listed in Figure 10.2. Apple, for example, is one
of the largest firms in the United States, but it spends only about $6 million per year on38%
The percentage of total lobbying
expenditures made by the top 100
interest groups.
Source: Opensecrets.orgDID YOU KNOW?
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