By michaelt
why aren't people just Kickstarter-ing cannabis
decriminalization, marriage equality, and
copyright law changes?
I would imagine it’s a lot cheaper to bribe a politician when:
1. The bribe doesn’t get any publicity/press coverage/cause any embarrassment. Campaign donations from big corporations are “business as usual” and the politicians don’t look corrupt in the press – but do the same way in a public, attention-grabbing way and the guy looks bad if he accepts.
2. The vote you want to affect is low key and doesn’t contradict the politician’s public position on major issues. Changing a politician’s opinion on the Concrete Masonry Products Research Education and Promotion Act of 2015 would be much cheaper than changing their opinion on overturning Roe vs Wade
3. You want to maintain the status quo. Creating new legislation and getting it through the system is a bunch of work – compared to turning up on the vote day and saying ‘no’.
4. There are future votes and future bribes to look forward to. If I give a politician $200,000 to vote a certain way, he might take the donation then vote a different way – and if I ask him to vote that way and promise him the money afterwards, I might refuse to pay after he votes. But if there are 10 votes and I donate $20,000 before each one if he voted how I wanted in the last vote? Then neither of us can screw the other over too badly because we know we’ll be making the same deal next year.
TLDR: I’d expect cannabis decriminalisation to cost a lot more than blocking tax code simplification.
See more about this article by clicking the link here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10105405
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