That's the true horror of the situation. Not only are our representatives for sale, they're for sale cheap.

If the media companies were bribing these clowns with billions of dollars, that would be one thing... but some of the people who signed that open letter probably spend more than $2,000,000 on lunch.

Plus, those monies are simply campaign contributions. How much grift to career politicians actually pocket?

Mostly, they don't pocket it but use it. A congressman is always campaigning and using those funds to live well doing it. They get the rest a bit less openly and from fun loop holes like trading insider info.