The Price of Political Influence

Which companies spend the most money for political influence? This question can be comprehensively answered for the United States using Congress’s Lobbying Disclosure Database. For example, communications giant AT&T invested almost 16 million U.S. dollars in 2013. Google’s lobbying costs came to 14 million U.S. dollars. In comparison, Apple invested significantly less – just 3.4 million U.S. dollars. The lobbying expenditure of all companies operating in the United States can be found here.