Pros And Cons Of Lobbyism
Today there is a limit on the size of gifts to members of Congress from lobbyist. This limit proposes that any gift that is less than fifty dollars in value can be given to Congress members and staff by lobbyist. In addition, each year a lobbyist cannot give more than one hundred dollars in gifts to both Congress members and staff. These guidelines were put into place to prevent conflict and controversy. Specifically, these regulations were made to prevent laws from coming into place and policy changes because of lobbyist offering and persuading Congress members and staffers through very expensive gifts. The book states that, “Interest groups lobbying often involves cases where resources favor one side.” Therefore, if lobbyist do have a good amount of money, they would have an advantage because they could provide a large amount of gifts. This may cause the Congress members to become more willing to make policy changes because of the continuous attention and gifts they are provided by the lobbyist. The government wanted to establish these guidelines to prevent this from occurring all together because it is not right. Due to this, countless reform proposals worked to prevent lobbyist from providing a member of Congress with anything.
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Since the problem of lobbyist persuading Congress to make certain laws or policies, and restrictions can create more problems, I do not believe that the rules are adequate. To begin, the rules that are currently in position has led to their being more work given to Congress members and staffers. They are forced to report about anything that they receive from lobbyist even if the person is their friend, colleague, or neighbor. This creates a lot of conflict but there can be exceptions made, but unfortunately it is a complicated
Since the problem of lobbyist persuading Congress to make certain laws or policies, and restrictions can create more problems, I do not believe that the rules are adequate. To begin, the rules that are currently in position has led to their being more work given to Congress members and staffers. They are forced to report about anything that they receive from lobbyist even if the person is their friend, colleague, or neighbor. This creates a lot of conflict but there can be exceptions made, but unfortunately it is a complicated