Sure, but even if it's not all TPP related - that is a truckload of money. I have no idea what you even spend that amount of money on - it would buy a lot of champagne and hookers for representatives.
Not only is it not all TPP related, it is mostly not TPP related. They cited the aggregate lobbying of all the (gigantic) members of a trade coalition, and that statistic is misleading.
The "champagne and hookers" snark is silly. Where do hundreds of millions of dollars in lobbying fees go? Approximately the same place as the hundreds of millions of dollars of donations to giant institutional charities go:
* Salaries for formal employees of the organization
* Contractor fees for copywriting, advertising, event planning, legal
* Giant advertising and promotional campaigns
* Fundraising
* Direct political donations
* PAC donations
Just replace "food banks" and "medical care" with "report writing" and you're close.
Lobbying isn't a great thing, and it interacts very badly with PACs, but it certainly isn't millions of dollars in strippers. Mostly, it's a scam to skim money off the political process and into the pockets of lobbyists and their firms.
Slight correction: lobbying spending numbers do not include donations to candidates or PACs. Federal law prohibts organizations from giving money to either.
Organizations can pay the expenses for a "captive" PAC (usually in the form of hosting it within their headquarters with all the costs that implies), but that spending is also excluded from reported lobbying numbers.
Other than that, you are spot on. Once people realize that lobbying expenditures include salaries and media buys, it's not hard to see how the total gets into many millions of dollars.
