<P> While the number of lobbyists in Washington is estimated to be over twelve thousand, those with real clout number in the dozens, and a small group of firms handles much of lobbying in terms of expenditures . A report in The Nation in 2014 suggested that while the number of 12,281 registered lobbyists was a decrease since 2002, lobbying activity was increasing and "going underground" as lobbyists use "increasingly sophisticated strategies" to obscure their activity . Analyst James A. Thurber estimated that the actual number of working lobbyists was close to 100,000 and that the industry brings in $9 billion annually . </P> <P> Lobbying has been the subject of academic inquiry in various fields, including law, public policy, and economics . </P> <P> Political scientist Thomas R. Dye once said that politics is about battling over scarce governmental resources: who gets them, where, when, why and how . Since government makes the rules in a complex economy such as the United States, it is logical that various organizations, businesses, individuals, nonprofits, trade groups, religions, charities and others--which are affected by these rules--will exert as much influence as they can to have rulings favorable to their cause . And the battling for influence has happened in every organized society since the beginning of civilization, whether it was Ancient Athens, Florence during the time of the Medici, Late Imperial China, or the present - day United States . Modern - day lobbyists in one sense are like the courtiers of the Ancien Régime . If voting is a general way for a public to control a government, lobbying is a more specific, targeted effort, focused on a narrower set of issues . </P> <P> The term lobby has etymological roots in the physical structure of the British Parliament, in which there was an intermediary covered room outside the main hall . People pushing an agenda would try to meet with members of Parliament in this room, and they came to be known, by metonymy, as lobbyists, although one account in 1890 suggested that the application of the word "lobby" is American and that the term is not used as much in Britain . </P>

Identify some of the major interest groups in america based on lobbying expenditures