Lobbyists: Are they responsible for the increasing U.S. income inequality?

From Fareed Zakaria

Income inequality is high and rising in the United States as compared with other countries.

And I believe related:

Compared with other democracies, the United States has become not just an outlier but practically another planet. The total cost of the 2010 national elections in Britain — the mother of parliamentary government — was $86 million. The cost of the 2012 U.S. elections has been estimated to be nearly 75 times that number, at $6.3 billion. 

Taking money out of politics is a mammoth challenge. Perhaps the best that one could hope for would be to limit instead what Congress can sell. In other words, enact a thorough reform of the tax code, ridding it of the thousands of special exemptions, credits and deductions that are institutionalized, legalized corruption.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/fareed-zakaria-the-root-of-washingtons-ills/2013/08/01/085392aa-fa15-11e2-8752-b41d7ed1f685_story.html