Corporations spend money on elections and politicians. They do it to bend policy in their favour. The money comes from what you paid them. More often than not, you end up funding a politician you didn't vote for or may not like.
Every prescription you fill, every gallon of gas, every internet subscription, every insurance premium includes a small share that funds your supplier's political activity. The supplier decides the candidate. The supplier decides the cause. You pay the bill. This page shows you what you have been funding.
Combined federal lobbying and election spending in the 2024 cycle. A record. The amount has more than doubled since 2000.
$4.4 billion in federal lobbying alone, the highest annual figure ever recorded.¹ $15.9 billion in 2024 election spending.² None of this was deducted from corporate profits. All of it was passed through to customers in prices.
A corporation decides what political outcomes serve its profits. Lower drug-pricing regulation. Looser carbon rules. Weaker privacy law. Larger defense contracts. Whatever the case.
The corporation hires lobbyists, funds Political Action Committees, donates to candidates, and finances dark-money groups. None of this is paid out of the CEO's pocket.
The cost of all this political activity is built into the prices of the products and services the corporation sells. The customer pays it without ever seeing it on a receipt.
The customer never authorized this use of their money. The customer was never asked which candidates or causes their money should support. The customer's only choice was to buy the product, or do without it.
Every major corporation that sells consumer goods spreads political donations across both parties to maximize access. If you have political views in any direction, your money has been used to fund the opposition.
The only consumers who escape this calculus are those who buy exclusively from small, locally-owned businesses with no political engagement. For the rest of the population, the probability approaches one.
The largest sector. Used to oppose drug-pricing reform, extend patent monopolies, and shape FDA policy.
Led by the National Association of Realtors. Focused on tax treatment of property and housing finance regulation.
Spread across both parties. Used to shape tax policy, regulatory rules, and disclosure requirements.
Meta alone spent a record $24.4M. The sector employs roughly one lobbyist for every two members of Congress.
98% of industry donations went to Republican candidates in 2022. Used to delay climate regulation.
Focused on procurement contracts and export controls. The companies that produce weapons also fund the legislators who authorize them.
A single trade association, funded by member corporations. The second-largest lobbying spender in the country.
These are direct lobbying numbers. They do not include political action committee spending, dark-money group contributions, issue advertising, or the costs of corporate political departments.² The full transfer from consumer wallets to political activity is substantially larger.
Of Americans say there is too much money in US politics. Only 5% disagree. This is one of the strongest public consensuses in modern polling.
80% say large donors have too much influence on the decisions of Congress, with bipartisan agreement: 83% of Republicans and 80% of Democrats hold this view.⁸ 85% say the cost of political campaigns keeps good people from running for office.⁸ 82% see money in politics as a threat to democracy.⁹
Adults in the United States alone who oppose the current system of political funding.
If American buyers required their suppliers to disclose, justify, and obtain consent for political spending as a condition of purchase, the entire infrastructure of corporate lobbying would have to be re-financed within a single quarter. No reform proposal currently on the table has remotely this much leverage. The buyer-side mechanism has never been built. It is the only one that would work.
The transfer is structural. Every corporation that engages in politics treats the cost as an expense passed through to customers in prices. The customer never sees the line item. The customer has no procurement-grade tool to refuse it. The customer has no idea which candidates their groceries funded last year.
This is not a campaign-finance problem. It is a supplier problem. The candidates and causes are downstream of the money. The money is downstream of you.
Supplierism allows buyers to set terms with their suppliers, including the terms on which a supplier may use the buyer's money for political activity. The framework is simple. The publication explains it, one case at a time.
Generate the procurement terms that require the companies handling your money to disclose what they fund in your name. The selections that follow are pre-set for an individual focused on political spending and lobbying disclosure. Adjust freely.
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