And, even if you do lobby the government full time, what if you're a lobbyist who works on behalf of environmental groups. If the Sierra Club wants to alert politicians about a secret clause snuck into a new bill regulating coal mines, they can hire you to talk to the right people. If a town like Flint, Michigan is having trouble with contamination of their water supply, they can hire you to find the right people to talk to.

Maybe in an ideal world every politician would have enough time and enough staff to fully investigate things on their own. But, in the real world, we're probably always going to need people to talk to the decision makers and advocate on our behalf.

What we really should have is good oversight and tight rules to ensure it's just talking and not doing favors, giving money, etc.