Just to put these numbers into perspective, something the infographic fails to do even though it slaps on the label "Big Money", Americans spend 15x more on pet food than both political candidates and parties combined spend on political speech.
Political donations are not a necessity for the country to work properly.
Pets may be a luxury, but once you have them feeding them is arguably a necessity. What's missing is whether they are buying more luxurious food than necessary.
Anyway, in the end it's a completely arbitrary comparison.
Point taken about having to feed them once you have them.
And I agree that political donations are not a necessity, but only if donations are banned, which is not the case. If your opponents are getting donations, then you are at a net loss if you don't. In that sense, being idealistic does not get you supporters, and donations really are necessary.
That money will be spread rather evenly over the population such that everyone spends some small amount. What's scary about the political donations is that small groups of people with particular interests spend vast amounts of money; it's this part of the comparison that matters, not the total sum.
http://www.petfoodinstitute.org/Index.cfm?Page=USPetFoodSale...