Wondering why politicians are considering bailing out the D2.8 to the tune of billions in subsidies and tax breaks? Wonder no more. The Center for Responsive Politics [via The Detroit News] reports that the auto industry spent a record $70m bribing lobbying congress last year. The General lavished $14.3m on its legislative campaigns, with Ford’s Capitol (capital?) efforts racking-up $7.2m. Toyota dedicated $5.9m to its lobbying team. Much of the money was spent [unsuccessfully] fighting recently-increased CAFE standards. A GM spokesman justified this a noble battle as “proportional to the potential competitive and economic impact that proposed legislation could have on our business.” It’s not like their $14m could have been better spent heading off other competitive challenges or paying an executive’s salary and bonuses. Anyway, don’t expect CAFE hikes to diminish GM’s enthusiasm for politics. They’ve already spent $4.1m on lobbying this year, not including $25k spent on The Governator’s re-election campaign (in unfulfilled hopes that he’d “hasta la vista, baby” to California’s new emission standards). Ain’t democracy grand?
11 Comments on “U.S. Automakers Spend $70 Million on Lobbying...”
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This has been going on for years. Sometimes I think politicians are just legal prostitutes. And while the domestic 3 pay out the most, Toyota has been at this game a long time, contributing to state and federal politicians since the 80’s.
$70 million seems like a lot, until you realize that altogether, lobbyists from other idustries (such as health care) have spent nearly $2.8B trying to woo congress.
Only $70M? Amateurs! HMOs, military contractors and pharmaceutical and oil companies are way in front.
$70M? Really not enough to design any decent new products. Might as well flush it down the politcal rat hole.
windswords :
May 1st, 2008 at 3:57 pm
Sometimes I think politicians are just legal prostitutes.
That’s one of the funniest things I’ve seen all day.
I’ve always thought the U.S. Senate is the best Senate money can buy…
Successful lobbying s one thng, unless lobby Uncle Sam to buy a bunch of cars to give away. Otherwise it wont go anywhere in the end. Very simple need customer satisfacton, & repeat buyers/ suckers.
Uncle Sam did bought a bunch of Chebbys for Iraq back in the 80’s. But some how it never materialised or part order had to be sold to public. Also they have very tall rear end
An interesting statistic would be to compare US and Japanese automakers and the ratio of spend: R&D to Lobbying…
Maybe automaker is an out of date term for some US companies… autoschmoozers might be more appropriate!
Only 4 Million to date? Wow, GM must be in trouble!
They’re going to have to spend a lot more than that to get US government funding for the proposed Hydrogen pipeline from the Sun…
When I worked at Packard Electric Division, managers were required to give to the republican party. So the actual amount the pols. get is probably greater.
That’s why the CAFE number is 35mpg and not 45, but if they had spent a little more, they could have gotten it to go down to 25mpg. Oh well, there’s always next year.