$370,000,000 / 10 years = $37,000,000 = 69,159/member/year
Surprise, surprise, surprise! NOT!
In ten seconds some fool will post it was the CRAs fault, they made the banks and home builders and realtors lobby to steal money!!
“Lobbying” is the natural byproduct of regulation in a democratic society - the right to petition the government.
The concern over lobbying and lobbyists is entirely misplaced - it belongs on the public officials.
The natural role of “lobbying” is nothing more than an organized mode of what each citizen has a right to do individually - give your view of legislation, or regulations under consideration, to those in government; which lobbyists do representing groups that have a common interest.
If the particular goal they seek is wrong, or potentially damaging to good order, or an attempt to suborn fraud, they are unable to achieve that goal without naive, or ignorant, or venal or corrupt persons in elective office.
Notice that the source of the FT report is the leftist “Center for Public Integrity” and notice that the basis of the report is to put attention on the lobbying effort and not the individuals in Congress who may have partied with that effort; which, if we are looking at the Wall Street Banks, we already know that Obama, as Senator, was one of their top ten political campaign donation recipients.
Not really. Those are big, big organizations with lots of highly paid employees. Even before Obama their business was driven, for good or ill, by whatever shenanigans Washington came up with next. They were leaned on heavily by current and prospective officeholders in their districts and beyond. And an officeholder shunned could be a dangerous, retaliatory ‘public servant’ indeed.