Lobbying has little to do with campaign contributions. Lobbyists are limited to $2,300 like everyone else. Especially corporate lobbying, because corporate campaign contributions to candidates are banned.
Neither of your links counter what rayiner said. The first specifically says the per-candidate, per-election limits were left in place. The second is just a sum total of all the contributions to Paul Ryan over his federal political career (which has nothing to do with the limits on individual contributors). Neither says that lobbyists have any different limits than I do.
When a high paid lobbyist shows up to advocate for a position, the idea that it’s just that lobbyist’s personal contribution speaking is silly. Whoever spent all that money on their salary will also find (generally legal) ways to get way more than $2300 to the relevant politicians. There are PACs, all the other members of the lobbying firm, executives at the companies that contribute to the lobbying group, etc. Think of the lobbying operation as in part a signal “a bunch of people put a bunch of money in play to send me here”. Your opinion implies that all these people can’t put 2+2 together.
I’m not even a big believer in the idea that our elections are bought and sold. We get roughly the government we idiots vote for. And an underlooked fact is that we elect inexperienced people to office, give them inexperienced staff, have them vote on topics they often barely understand (think of anything tech related). One big part of what lobbyists do is just show up with fancy talking points designed to appeal to the particular legislator. But denying that there’s a lot of money sloshing around doesn’t make sense.
Money in lobbying is almost entirely paying lobbyists to make PowerPoint presentations to staffers: https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/06_lobb....