Voting With Dollars: Politicians and Their Staffers Roll With Uber

The Center for Public Integrity, an anonymous reader writes, has conducted an analysis of the relationship between one interesting group of riders (275 federal politicians and political committees) and ride-sharing services like Uber. From their report, it seems this group "together spent more than $278,000 on at least 7,625 Uber rides during the 2013-2014 election cycle." That's a roughly 18-fold spending increase from the previous election cycle, when federal committees together spent about $15,000 on Uber services. It represents a veritable monopoly, too: Almost no political committee used Uber's direct competitors, Lyft and Sidecar, according to the analysis, and traditional taxi use declined precipitously. Bipartisan love of Uber abounds, with politicos of all stripes composing a de facto Uber caucus, voting with their money for a wildly popular but controversial company.

Comments

Re:Hate for Uber

[CrimsonAvenger]

The regulations are there for a reason, just like the driver's license is there for a reason.

Of course, in this case, the laws, bylaws, rules and regulations exist to maintain the monopolies held by the existing taxi companies.

If you think service is better with the entrenched monopoly, no problem. But don't make the mistake of thinking that the existing condition is anything other than a monopoly literally bought and paid for by the taxi companies....

Note, for the record, that I'm pretty much a disinterested third party in all this - I don't use Uber OR taxis, don't drive for either, don't even know anyone attached to either....