If corporations shouldered the same ratio of the tax burden relative to individuals that it did throughout the 1950s, they’d have paid an additional $560 billion to Uncle Sam in 2014.
Continue readingMcKeon’s lobbying firm inks campaign contributor as client
Though retired Rep. Buck McKeon is barred from lobbying his ex-colleagues on Capitol Hill until 2016, the former chair of the House Armed Services Committee has already inked a major client— a former campaign donor — to his new lobbying firm.
Continue readingFixed Fortunes update: Big donors score as 113th Congress sunsets
Before shutting up shop on Tuesday, the least productive Congress in recent memory managed to produce some goodies for some very special interests.
Continue readingFixed Fortunes: Biggest corporate political interests spend billions, get trillions
Between 2007-2012, America’s most politically active corporations spent $5.8 billion on federal lobbying and campaign contributions. A Sunlight Foundation analysis suggests, however, that what they gave pales compared to what they got: $4.4 trillion in federal benefits.
Continue readingIs the Ex-Im bank really doomed? Not likely, if you look at historical lobbying efforts
If lobbying's any indication, the Export-Import bank won't go away anytime soon. A Sunlight Foundation analysis of the 20 organizations that have lobbied the most on the Ex-Im bank shows that 19 of 20 support the bank.
Continue readingStar Wars: Major Players in Space Industry Battle Over Launch Pad Lease
The biggest challenges that commercial space flight companies Blue Origin and Spacex face this fall may not take place outside of the stratosphere, but rather right here on Earth.
As reported by the Waco Tribune, these two players of the fledgling industry are the sole competitors for a NASA contract to lease the historic Launch Pad 39a -- a part of the John F Kennedy Space Center in Florida that was the point of departure for dozens of Space Shuttle missions. A review of the influence profiles of these companies points to a heavyweight showdown, as both groups have serious financial ...
Continue readingWhom Mark Sanford owes
Some big investors got a nice payoff Tuesday when Mark Sanford, South Carolina's disgraced former governor, won back his old House seat.
As Sanford acknowledged in his victory speech Tuesday night in Charleston, he's got a lot to be thankful for. The list could include more than $200,000 in late donations from big Republican donors and interests who bet that the ex-South Carolina governor could overcome a sex scandal and get his political career on track. The group includes 47 organizations and out-of-state givers -- a number of them with ties to the financial industry and libertarian causes ...
Continue readingDarkmarks: Are largest defense contractors benefiting from programmatic requests?
Of the roughly 1,040 Pentagon procurement programs–the $99.3 billion part of the Defense budget devoted to purchasing new equipment–some 212... View Article
Continue readingBig tech, big oil and defense help underwrite Obama inaugural
President Barack Obama raised more than $43 million for his second inaugural, including seven-figure donations from some of the nation's biggest tech, defense and energy companies, a report filed on Saturday with the Federal Election Commission shows.
The top donor to the 2013 presidential inaugural was AT&T, which gave $4.6 million in equipment and services. That single donation equalled more than all of the inaugural committee's smallest donors (those who gave $200 or less than therefore did not have contributions itemized in the FEC report) combined.
Other members of the seven-figure check club: Microsoft, which gave ...
Continue readingTop government contractors spend less than a penny on politics for every dollar at stake in sequester
With the sequestration deadline rapidly approaching, one set of companies has more at stake than any other, at least in terms of sheer dollars: big government contractors. By our count, the ten biggest government contractors would stand to lose roughly $13.6 billion in contracts if the across-the-board 9.4 percent cuts to discretionary defense spending cuts were applied equally across their 2012 contract award amounts. Compare that to the $115 million they spent on lobbying and campaigns, and that investment in politics starts to look like a bargain. And if that political investment helps to avoid the proposed cuts and keep these companies' contracting revenues stable, that would amount to a 125-to-1 return for these 10 companies, on average.
59063
