<story><title>TurboTax Tricked You into Paying to File Your Taxes  (2019)</title><url>https://www.propublica.org/article/turbotax-just-tricked-you-into-paying-to-file-your-taxes</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>qnk</author><text>Honest question, how is lobbying different from bribery? Lobbyists go to Washington, spend fortunes on taking lawmakers to fancy dinners and then get away with what they want. Maybe I don&amp;#x27;t understand the process and am oversimplifying it, but that&amp;#x27;s how I see it.</text></item><item><author>grayhatter</author><text>We&amp;#x27;re sorry the answer to &amp;quot;why can&amp;#x27;t we have nice things&amp;quot; wasn&amp;#x27;t [political party], it was &lt;i&gt;lobbyists&lt;/i&gt;. Lobbyists is the answer to, &amp;quot;why can&amp;#x27;t we have nice things&amp;quot;!</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>alistairSH</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ll flip the question around...
How is lobbying different than random voter talking to their representative in person?&lt;p&gt;It isn&amp;#x27;t really - a lobbyist is just exercising the free speech available to all individuals - they just happen to be doing it on behalf of a group of individuals.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m purposefully ignoring the whole &amp;quot;corporations are people&amp;quot; aspect because that&amp;#x27;s a different discussion.  But, what you seem to be arguing is that I cannot gather with my neighbors, select a person from the group, and send them to DC to talk to our Congressperson about whatever topic interests us.  Instead, we all have to go individually?&lt;p&gt;Edit - I actually do find the current lobbying situation to be problematic, but it mostly relates to campaign donations.  It&amp;#x27;s not as simple as lobbying (by itself) is bad.</text></comment>
<story><title>TurboTax Tricked You into Paying to File Your Taxes  (2019)</title><url>https://www.propublica.org/article/turbotax-just-tricked-you-into-paying-to-file-your-taxes</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>qnk</author><text>Honest question, how is lobbying different from bribery? Lobbyists go to Washington, spend fortunes on taking lawmakers to fancy dinners and then get away with what they want. Maybe I don&amp;#x27;t understand the process and am oversimplifying it, but that&amp;#x27;s how I see it.</text></item><item><author>grayhatter</author><text>We&amp;#x27;re sorry the answer to &amp;quot;why can&amp;#x27;t we have nice things&amp;quot; wasn&amp;#x27;t [political party], it was &lt;i&gt;lobbyists&lt;/i&gt;. Lobbyists is the answer to, &amp;quot;why can&amp;#x27;t we have nice things&amp;quot;!</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jjcon</author><text>People only hear about lobbying in a bad light but the truth is they are vitally essential - not all lobbying is back room dealing - the vast majority of it is basically advising. When you call your senator you would be lobbying on behalf of a cause.&lt;p&gt;If the government wanted to put a back door in encryption, who is it that tells them why that’s a bad idea? Quite often, lobbyists (in this case on Behalf of companies whose security would be compromised). Industries organize lobbyists to advocate for themselves because politicians can’t possibly understand all the ramifications of the laws they pass.&lt;p&gt;There are definitely issues with organized lobbying but the alternatives are lacking.</text></comment>