Please rank the following organizations based on their total political contributions (federal and state) in 2008:
National Education Association, PG&E Corp, Service Employees International Union, AT&T Inc., Bank of America, American Federation of State/County/Municipal Employees, Microsoft Corp, Chevron Corp
Bonus points for providing actual donation values.
1. Most of those large donors are groups with earnings directly tied to government decisions.
2. Those unions represent an entire class of workers nationwide, while a corporation represents a subset of the market; the contributions of all corporations in an industry combined represent a more relevant number.
Check upthread a few posts for just such numbers (opensecrets.org also has that data). The idea that corporations have excessively more influence due to campaign contributions than, say, unions just isn't supported by the available data.
Also note that publicly held corporations represent a large number of individual shareholders as well.
The problem, in my view, isn't that there is too much money in politics, that's merely a symptom. The underlying problem is that government has too much control and influence over everything anybody does. That makes it not only attractive but often necessary to maintain influence with and access to government representatives in order to get along.
National Education Association, PG&E Corp, Service Employees International Union, AT&T Inc., Bank of America, American Federation of State/County/Municipal Employees, Microsoft Corp, Chevron Corp
Bonus points for providing actual donation values.
* Spoilers: http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list_stfed.php?order=A