A sweet deal

As I was working one of the machines at the gym today, my eyes drifted up to one of the television screens. Since they have about a dozen, the sound is turned off and you have to read the scrolled copy at the bottom.

I just caught the end of one news broadcast and thought I saw that the American Beverage Association spent $8 million in lobbying last year. Eight million bucks in lobbying? I couldn’t have heard that right.

So, I just looked it up and it was $7.3 million in the article I found. But, not for 2009. Just the third quarter.

In addition to that, they funneled about a quarter million through some other lobbying outlets. One of the big issues was a contemplated “sin” tax on sugared beverages, seeing how they fatten people up and make them unhealthy. It had been discussed, not written or proposed.

Hypothetically, let’s call it $7.5 million and annualize it to $30 million. What do you spend $30 million on to lobby?

The senators and representatives have offices in the same place, so let’s say a lobbyist could make five individual contacts a day to be conservative. That’s 25/week or 1,300 a year. One person could cover every senator and representative almost three times in a year. Let’s err on the side of caution and say you need three lobbyists at $150,000, each.

Now let’s suppose you incur some semi-ethical entertainment expense. You take every representative and senator to lunch or dinner twice during the year at a cost of $200 a pop. They aren’t drinking sugared beverages. That’s $214,000.

You’re going to do some direct mail, position papers, etc., but the distribution list totals only 535. We’ll call it $50,000.

We’re up to $714,000. I’ll throw in $286,000 for incidentals and to make it an even mill. Okay, where did the other $29 million go? Or, to whom?

Yes, I’ve made some uneducated guesses and I know how the game works. But, it’s fun to ponder.

The fact that most people don’t is why elected officials, legislation and subsidies are bought and sold every day.