Ryuu96 said:
shikamaru317 said:
People in here really don't seem to understand how political donations work:
1. Companies themselves aren't allowed to give political donations (except through PAC's, which are closely regulated), so those Microsoft donations you are seeing are primarily donations from employees at Microsoft, not from Microsoft themselves.
2. Political Action Committees (PAC), the only way that corporations can directly fund a politician's campaign, are closely regulated by the Federal Government as well as most State Governments. They are required to be registered as a PAC with the FEC (Federal Election Commission) and submit detailed financial data afterwards, and the maximum allowed donation per candidate by a PAC is $5,000 per election cycle, a mere drop in the bucket compared to the millions of dollars of total donations that a US senator receives.
3. People here are mentioning that Microsoft's PAC gave Senator Kevin Cramer $5,000 in the last election. Cramer's total donations over the last 5 years were $6.925m, and Microsoft is not listed among his top 5 donors, $5,000 from Microsoft through a PAC is a drop in the bucket compared to his total donation amount and hardly enough to buy any sort of influence over his decisions. It's far more likely that he is actually concerned that Sony's anti-competitive moneyhatting strategies could harm the potential for growth of the video game industry within his state, just like he says.
4. Microsoft overwhelmingly funds Democrat politicians, and yet there are 4 Republicans mentioned in this article asking the Biden admin to pressure Japan about why their regulator is allowing Sony to moneyhat Japanese games off of Xbox when they already have a gargantuan marketshare lead over Xbox there.
5. While Microsoft isn't listed here and I can't find the employee donations by party for Microsoft, based on the donation track record of other big tech company employees, Microsoft's employees most likely also overwhelmingly donate to Democrat politicians (especially since Microsoft is headquartered in Washington, which is I believe the 5th most liberal state in the US as of the 2020 election).
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So PACs can only be issued during the an election cycle?
To point 4, like I said as well, Cory Booker received more in PAC money from Microsoft than the two Senators being mentioned (Cantwell and Cramer) and yet Cory is against the acquisition it would seem, Lol. Apparently it only costs ~$5,000 to buy a Senator. Who knew that I have enough money to buy my own Senator, I'm moving to America and buying a Senator!
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That is my understanding, most types of PAC's, including the type that corporations are allowed to setup such as Microsoft's PAC, are only allowed to donate $5000 once per election cycle to a candidate (twice if they fund both the candidate's primary campaign and their general election campaign, meaning the maximum donation from a corporation directly to a senator is $10,000 every 6 years, since that is how long a senator is elected for). They can fund more to a Representative as they are elected every 2 years instead of every 6 like Senators, so over a 6 year period a corporation can donate a maximum of $30,000 to a Representative. But Representatives are seen as having less political power than Senators, so a corporation might not want to fund the maximum amount to a Representative unless it is a Representative who is seen as having more power, such as a Majority Leader.
There is a certain type of PAC called a Super PAC that is allowed to engage in unlimited spending on ads independently from a candidate's campaign, and they are also allowed to accept donations with no maximum limit even from corporations. However, Super PAC's are not allowed to donate directly to a candidate's campaign, nor are they allowed to coordinate with a candidate's campaign in any way, they are only allowed to run non-affiliated ads in favor of a particular candidate or in favor of a particular political issue.
Last edited by shikamaru317 - on 15 April 2023
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