Yep.

In the US, a lot of the time support for one program or another is given not on the basis of ideology, but rather on the basis of whether or not the beneficiaries of a program provided commensurate, um, "campaign contributions".

Pretty sure impoverished school kids contribute pretty much zero to political campaigns.

Increasingly campaigns are funded almost entirely by small dollar donations raised through social media. This is about to make US politics really weird, and I'm not sure what to think of it.

Also basically all legislation that passes which is very little, is written by the staffers of House and Senate leadership without going through committee. It's then handed to members to rubber stamp on the floor if the votes are already secured. Buying some random senator or rep is basically worthless these days unless they hold swing vote and can't be primaried for some reason.

There's a ton of legislation written by think tanks like ALECS

It would be nice if all campaigns were funded by small donations. We should get large corporate donors out of politics

Sure, but most of that stuff doesn't make it into law at the federal level. State houses are a different story. Congress really doesn't pass a lot of legislation anymore.

> It would be nice if all campaigns were funded by small donations

If you go look at the videos congress people are putting up to pull in donations, you may not have such a rosy view. It tends to be the most divisive stuff, and really leans into fear of the other in general. It seems unhealthy to me.