Corporations’ Impact on the Government

Bachman, Katy. 1209508-capital-building-picture. 2011. Accessed
7 Apr. 2011.  <http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/
media/e3iadc3894a0975c85f51e5e8083d065af3>

Many people are familiar with the idea of corporations influencing the government.  Most corporations influence the government through campaign funding.  According to Marc A Triebwasser the time a corporation made a major contribution to a political campaign was in 1896 to support William McKinley (par 2).  Triebwasser also says that corporations can donate as much money as they want to support a certain political party as long as they are not supporting a particular candidate (par 13).  Many corporations can also run a tremendous amount of advertisements against certain politicians with no restrictions on how many ads can be shown.  Research from Triebwasser indicates that if a person can receive about $200,000 then that person can run an excellent campaign in a congressional election (par 18).  This means that a corporation only needs to donate a small fraction of the billions of dollars that it profits to back a certain political party.  Once a corporation supports a certain political party then they can get the money to certain politicians under the table without directly contributing to any specific person.  Corporations can also pay people to lobby for certain politicians.  Many corporations regulate certain parts of the economy.  According to Senator Sheldon Whitehouse these regulatory agencies are only concerned with the prosperity of their industry and prevent changes that will have negative effects on it (par 3).  Whitehouse also says that this ultimately leads corporations to dominate many aspects of politician’s political agenda (par 3).  This means that many corporations can control who is elected to office and the objectives of those who are elected.  One way protect against this is to never let government agencies fall under the influence of corporations.  The government also needs to have stricter laws to prevent corporate influence in political campaigns and elections.  America needs to take all necessary measures to prevent corporations from influencing the government or else the consequences will be catastrophic. 

Works Cited

Bachman, Katy. 1209508-capital-building-picture. 2011. Accessed 7 Apr. 2011. <http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/media/e3iadc3894a0975c85f51e5e8083d065af3>

Triebwasser, Marc A. How Corporations Influence the Government. 1998. 7 April 2011 <http://www.polisci.ccsu.edu/trieb/InfluGov.html>.

Whitehous, Sheldon. Protecting Our Government From Corporate Influence . 23 June 2010. 7 April 2011 <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sen-sheldon-whitehouse/protecting-our-government_b_623143.html>.