Those numbers are just what they're spending on staff doing lobbying around the country, right? Most of those don't seem too crazy. Like the AARP is spending $3 million, but how many lobbyists is that actually employing? 10?

Those numbers are incredulous!

You should ask yourself: how can a for-profit company like AT&T justify spending $16million on something with $0 ROI?

For a company that made $180 billion in revenue, $16 million is only .009%. I'm not denying that lobbying is effective, but there's clearly a limit.

There are probably thousands of individual government regulations that each could cost AT&T more than $16 million per year. If lobbying was as powerful as some think, why don't they lobby even more?

0 ROI? Are you aware of the total monopoly they have in parts of the country?

Without lobbying, competition would have destroyed profitability of telecommunications.