I was looking at my phone bill the other day, and it just keeps going up. Every year. And then I read about how the telecom companies spend millions lobbying to kill regulations that would actually bring prices down. That’s the system in a nutshell. My position is a hard yes—corporations absolutely should have less political influence, because what we have right now isn’t democracy, it’s a subscription service where the highest bidder gets the laws they want. Look, I get the other side’s potential argument. They’ll say corporations represent jobs, innovation, and economic growth. They’ll say that limiting their voice is like tying one hand behind the economy’s back. But that’s a fantasy. We’ve tried unlimited corporate influence for decades. The result isn’t some utopian free market; it’s a rigged game where big companies use political donations and armies of lobbyists to crush smaller competitors and write rules that protect their monopolies. That doesn’t spur growth—it stifles it. Real innovation comes from the garage startup that can’t afford a seat at the table. This isn’t about silencing business. It’s about restoring the basic principle of one person, one vote. Right now, political access is a commodity. A CEO can buy a meeting with a senator that you and I could never get. That distorts everything, from environmental policy to healthcare to tax law, always in favor of concentrated wealth. We need fundamental reform—publicly funded elections, strict bans on corporate PAC money, and real transparency so we can see every dollar. We’ve let a corporate aristocracy set up shop in our government, and it’s time to evict them. The health of our society depends on it.

Oli brought up the small business owner, and that's a perfect example of why the current system is broken. That owner's trade association? It's drowned out by the Walmart's and Amazon's of the world who can afford to flood the zone with lobbyists. The idea that all corporate voices are equal is the fantasy here. The "expertise" we're listening to isn't from the pilot in the cockpit, it's from the billionaire in the boardroom who owns the airline and wants to scrap safety regulations to boost his stock price. You say corporations are just collections of people. But when a pharmaceutical company spends $200 million lobbying to keep drug prices high, whose interests are they representing? Not the patients who are their customers. Not the citizens who are their employees. They're representing the profit motive, pure and simple. That's not a democratic interest group; it's a financial battering ram aimed at our political system. And this idea that limiting their influence creates a policy vacuum is a scare tactic. We have public hearings, academic research, testimony from actual citizens. We don't need a corporate lobbyist to tell us that clean water is good or that workers deserve a living wage. What their "expertise" provides is a roadmap for how to write loopholes and delay enforcement. You want to fix the system, not amputate a part of it. But when a part is cancerous, you do cut it out. The sheer volume of corporate money is the problem, because volume dictates access. It determines which issues even get discussed. We're not talking about silencing the small business owner. We're talking about dismantling the megaphone that lets a handful of conglomerates shout over everyone else. Real reform means public funding of elections and closing the revolving door between regulators and the industries they regulate. Until we do that, the "seat at the table" you're defending is a throne, and the rest of us are just picking up the crumbs.

Oli keeps talking about muting the engine of the economy, but that's the whole problem—we've let the engineers lock themselves in the control room and steer the train straight off a cliff for their own profit. The most practical consequence of reducing corporate influence is that we might actually start passing laws that serve the public good, not just the quarterly earnings report. You say targeted influence with transparency is the only practical path. But that's what we have now, on paper! We have lobbying disclosures. We know who's donating. And yet, nothing changes. Because transparency without power limits is just a spectator sport. We get to watch as our politicians are legally bought. You can't "balance" a system where one side has billions of dollars and the other has a clipboard and a protest sign. And this idea that we're making people "ignorant of the consequences" by limiting corporate lobbying is patronizing. We have unions, we have academics, we have independent regulators who can assess job impacts. We don't need a fossil fuel executive to tell us about energy policy; we need climate scientists, and their voices are currently being silenced by that very corporate influence you defend. You say a corporation is people with paychecks and pensions. But when that corporation lobbies to offshore those jobs or underfund that pension, whose interest is it serving? Not the workers'. It's serving capital. It's a legal entity designed to maximize wealth, and when we give that entity political power, it will always use it to maximize wealth, even at the expense of the very people you claim it represents. Kicking players off the field? No. We're asking the team that owns the stadium, the referees, and the broadcast rights to play by the same rules as everyone else. The small business association isn't drowned out because we have too few voices; it's drowned out because we allow unlimited financial amplification. You don't fix that by adding more microphones. You fix it by cutting the power to the megaphones. Real reform isn't sabotage. It's survival. We've seen where the current path leads: crumbling infrastructure, unaffordable medicine, and a democracy that feels like a sham. We don't need the "expertise" of monopolists. We need a political system that responds to human need, not corporate greed. And that starts by drastically reducing their legally-sanctioned power to purchase outcomes.

Here’s a fact that should shock you: in the 2020 election cycle, corporate PACs and business interests poured over $3.5 billion into federal politics. That’s not a chorus of voices, Oli—that’s a tsunami of cash that drowns out every other sound. You keep framing this as taking expertise out of the room, but you’re ignoring the raw math of power. When one group can spend more on lobbying in a year than the entire budget of a federal regulatory agency, the conversation isn’t balanced. It’s bought. You say sunshine is the disinfectant, not prohibition. But we’ve tried that! We have disclosure laws. We all saw that pharmaceutical companies spent a quarter billion dollars lobbying last year. And what changed? Nothing. Because sunlight doesn’t matter when the other side is playing with a flamethrower and you have a squirt gun. Transparency without caps is just a scoreboard for a rigged game. And this idea that reducing corporate influence creates a vacuum filled by “bureaucrats with no skin in the game” is a classic scare tactic. Who has more skin in the game than the people who breathe the air, drink the water, and work the jobs? You’re implying that a corporate executive, whose skin in the game is shareholder returns, has a more valid stake than the community living with the fallout. That’s not democracy. That’s feudalism with a lobbyist badge. You argue we need the people who build things in the room. Absolutely. So let’s bring in the engineers and the line workers—not just the CEOs whose bonuses depend on cutting corners. But that’s not what corporate lobbying is. It’s not about sharing technical expertise on bridge construction; it’s about securing tax loopholes and blocking wage hikes. We have public comment periods and congressional testimony for real expertise. What we don’t need is a system where policy is drafted by the very industries it’s meant to regulate. The goal isn’t to mute the economy. It’s to unmute the citizenry. Real balance isn’t achieved by letting the loudest voice keep its amplifier; it’s achieved by ensuring no one can buy a louder speaker. We need hard caps, public financing, and an end to the legal fiction that corporate money is speech. Until we do, the table you’re defending will always have a head, and the rest of us will be fighting for the crumbs.

Oli, you keep circling back to this idea that we need the bridge-builders in the room. But you're confusing the engineer with the accountant. The corporate lobbying we're talking about isn't about sharing blueprints; it's about rigging the contract bidding process so their firm always wins, even if their bridges are substandard. We can and should consult technical experts. What we shouldn't do is let the company's CFO write the safety regulations to save money. You say if we silence companies, they'll just move operations somewhere that will listen. That's the ultimate admission that this isn't about dialogue or expertise—it's about coercion. It's a threat: give us the laws we want, or we'll take our ball and go home. That's not a partner in democracy; that's a hostage-taker. A healthy economy shouldn't be held ransom by a boardroom's political demands. And this fantasy that transparency alone fixes things is exhausted. We have the sunlight. We see the billions. It hasn't stopped a thing because the punishment—public outrage—is no match for the reward of a billion-dollar tax break. You can't shame a profit-maximizing entity. You can only limit its power to corrupt. Finally, you claim a thriving company serves both workers and capital. Look at the last 40 years of data. Productivity has soared while wages have stagnated. Corporate profits are at record highs while worker power has eroded. That disconnect happened precisely because unchecked political influence allowed corporations to rewrite labor laws, crush unions, and shift all the gains to shareholders. The voice you're defending didn't create a balance; it created an imbalance of historic proportions. We don't need the provider exiled. We need them moved from the head of the table to a seat with everyone else. That means stripping away their special ability to fund campaigns and hire lawmakers' future employers. Let them make their case in public hearings, on equal footing with community advocates and scientists. What we have now isn't a conversation. It's a corporate monologue, and the rest of us are just waiting for our turn to speak that never comes. Less influence isn't about silence. It's about turning down the volume so we can finally hear ourselves think.