Organization’s Lobbyist
Marcy’s organization is a chain of retail stores and websites dealing with various merchandise such as children’s, women’s, and men’s wear, accessories, apparel, cosmetics, and furniture, among other consumer products. The company operates about eight hundred and fifty stores in forty-five states within the United States and three other neighboring countries (International Debate Education Association, 2007).
Due to the nature of the company, its degree of operation is usually seasonal since there are times when business sales are high and times of low sales due to seasonal events and festivals such as the Christmas holidays. The Federal government fiscal policy requires that the financial statements report be prepared by the accounting principles applied in the United States. Besides, the management of every organization is obliged by law to provide estimates and presumptions that directly influence the number of stated assets and liabilities and reported income and expenditure during the period of writing.
However, these kinds of estimates and presumptions do not go without inherent uncertainties due to the difference in the actual and reported amounts. Owing to the business’s seasonal nature, the outcome of operations during 13 weeks between 3rd May 2008 and 5th May 2007, excluding the Christmas season, does not necessarily indicate the actual fiscal outcome for the year. Some reclassifications had to be made before the financial year’s amounts to march the classifications of the current year’s financial totals (Honnungar, 2010).
A financial policy also referred to as the federal government’s fiscal policy is the policy strategy that is put in place by the federal government and is concerned with the changes in taxation and spending with a view to either trying to bring about expansionary or contradictory policies.
Since this company mainly relies on seasonal marketing trends, the fiscal policy should be formulated so that there are short term intervention measures so that our business does not suffer in the economic downturn. The company cannot afford to wait for the average business cycle period to end when, naturally, it then reemerges to survive. The government should increase its spending during the festive seasons such as Christmas since it provides a sales boom for the company season and reduces spending at some other low seasons in our sales (Weil, 2008).
However, monetary policy is mainly concerned with the steps taken by central banks in a bid to achieve macroeconomics on lending and interest rates. The monetary policy should be such that more money is released from the Federal Reserve into the market with reduced taxation during the festive seasons instead of only when the recession is being expected (Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 2010). Following the local and state legal matters, the company is obliged to give tax returns, subject to various state authorities’ examination. This type of petty and stringent state laws should be scrapped off, particularly for Macy’s company since it has already acquired all legal licenses authorizing its operations.
Your Opinions On Lobbying Regarding
Lobbying should continue in the United States with regards to issues affecting the interest groups. This is important because there are so many different special groups with conflicting interests (Reuters, 2009). The government itself is an example of an interest group. The larger subset of the entire citizens is another example of a particular interest group within the public domain. It is, therefore, essential that each group be allowed to lobby based on what its interest is. However, lobbying does not warrant the obvious granting of the demands by the lobbyists. Many supporters of the idea of rally view it as fundamental human rights, such as that of a company looking at its interests by petitioning the government to intervene in some unique ways to the particular interests of given groups (Plunkett, 2008).
Anyone who is free and has a passion for the service to the people cannot accept money from other fraudulent sources if they have the interest of the people at heart. It is indeed costly to run an election in the US in the tune of millions of dollars. A politician relying on significant sums of money from interest groups would, therefore, most likely turn to serve the interest of such particular organizations that funded him/her rather than serve the public.
Many organizations, therefore, should come in place and support the aspirants so that once elected, the politician does not help only one interest group of people but several groups of people with different kinds of needs. In so doing, a more significant share of the community is reached. Nevertheless, lobbying is still substantial to some extent in that such practices can only be condemned through lobbying by organizations that hold a different opinion on this matter.
As a matter of fact, the amount of money required by politicians to the campaign has tremendously increased such that one may need to solicit funds from different sources in order to mount reasonable drives. In addition, the special interest groups would be willing to fund foreign politicians on opposing parties in order to ensure that their interests are taken care of irrespective of whoever wins the elections. It is against this background that lobbying should be limited by law since the interest groups wield too much power and influence that they define the course of action of the government, thus dictating the entire interest of the larger public.
Lobbyists may sometimes lack reliable and adequate evidence supporting their claims; therefore, their complaints should be investigated and brought before the law. Additionally, selfish political interests should be monitored so that it does not camouflage itself with dedicated lobbyists’ demands. The United States should learn from the British system of politics whereby stringent limits are put on the spending of the individual candidates, and television ads are banned but giving free access to parties. In so doing, politicians will be less vulnerable to the influence of the interest lobbying groups. Hence, lobbying practices should still be permitted, although there is a need to monitors all forms of lobbying to ensure that specific claims being pursued do not contravene what is expected.
References
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (2010). What is the difference between monetary policy and fiscal policy, and how are they related? Web.
Hungar, J. (2010). Generic Study on Monetary and Fiscal Policy. Norderstedt. GRIN Verlag.
International Debate Education Association (2007). Politics & Special Interests. Web.
Plunkett, J. (2008). Plunkett’s Apparel & Textiles Industry Almanac. Texas. Plunkett Research Limited.
Reuters (2009). Fact box-How many lobbyists are there in Washington? Web.
Weil, D. (2008). Fiscal Policy: The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics. New York. Liberty Fund, Inc.