“ It was natural and perhaps human that the privileged princes of these new economic dynasties , thirsting for power , reached out for control over Government itself . They created a new despotism and wrapped it in the robes of legal sanction . In its service new mercenaries sought to regiment the people , their labor , and their property . And as a result , the average man once more confronts the problem that faced the Minute Man .”
And here we are . Americans for Tax Fairness just published a shocking report that opens with this statement :
“ The nation ’ s roughly 750 billionaires are increasingly using their personal fortunes and the profits of connected corporations to drown out regular voters ’ voices and elect hand-picked candidates who further rig the nation ’ s economy — especially the tax system — to make their wealthy benefactors even richer . This anti-democratic vote-buying , totaling $ 1.2 billion in the 2020 election cycle , has expanded greatly in recent years .”
The rate at which billionaires are pouring money into elections has taken a sharp upward turn , they note , since Trump ’ s election just six years after Citizens United :
“ Billionaires pumped $ 1.2 billion into the 2020 elections , almost 40 times more than the $ 31 million they donated in 2010 , when the Citizens United rules were first in effect . In the 2020 election cycle , billionaires contributed nearly $ 1 out of every $ 10 , while making up just 0.01 % of all donors contributing more than $ 200 .”
Almost half of all the money donated to the two main super PACs supporting the GOP came from just 27 right-wing billionaires .
Investing money in politicians and ballot initiatives , since the practice was legalized by five dirty Republicans on the Supreme Court , turns out to be the very most profitable investment a billionaire can make .
For example , in 2020 Democrats in Illinois put up a ballot measure called the “ Fair Tax ” that cut state income taxes for people earning under $ 100,000 a year while it raised state income taxes on those making over $ 1 million from 4.95 % to 7.99 %.
The ballot measure ’ s main supporter — Governor ( and progressive billionaire ) JB Pritzker — hoped the measure would raise around $ 3 billion in tax revenue to help the state close a budget hole and support public education .
But , according to media reports , Illinois resident and right-wing billionaire Ken Griffin ( one of Ron DeSantis ’ largest donors ) spent $ 54 million of his own money to defeat the measure .
His campaign to carpet-bomb the state with a message to the effect of “ Democrats can ’ t be trusted ; they just want to raise your taxes ” worked and the measure was defeated . The proposed billionaire tax would have cost Griffin $ 51 million just in that one year of 2020 and , as ProPublica noted :
“ In especially good years — in 2018 , Griffin reported income of almost $ 2.9 billion — he might have been forced to pay more than $ 80 million more .”
In other words , it wasn ’ t an expenditure for Griffin : it was a low-cost investment .
America has ceased to be a functioning democracy , as a direct result of a series of decisions by Republicans on the Supreme Court claiming that when billionaires buy politicians it ’ s no longer bribery or corruption but merely “ First Amendment-protected free speech .”
Money , according to the Republicans on the Court , isn ’ t money : it ’ s speech . And whoever has the most money in America today has the most speech , particularly in the world of politics .
This corruption of American politics by the Supreme Court ’ s novel doctrine ( we ’ re the only developed country in the world , outside of Hungary and Russia , that tolerates this ) isn ’ t just staying in the US .
For the past year or more , Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has been working with her peers in governments around the world to end corporate tax-avoidance schemes that let a company doing business and making billions in profits in , for example , America to avoid paying American taxes by claiming a different country as their tax “ home .”
Over 100 nations had signed on , including every member of the European Union , until a group of American corporations spread some “ free speech ” around the GOP . Because the EU operates by consensus — a single dissenting nation can kill a deal — the one European country that also allows dark-money contributions to politicians has now put the shiv into Yellen ’ s project .
Apparently acting on behalf of their billionaire donors , the two top Republicans on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee , Adrian Smith ( NE ) and Mike Kelly ( PA ), reached out to their Hungarian peers and essentially recommended they use their veto to block the EU ’ s ratification of the deal .
It worked , guaranteeing hundreds of billions in ongoing tax-avoidance for US corporations and their billionaire owners . Peter Szijjarto , Hungary ’ s foreign minister , echoed the American corporate line when he announced on July 1st that :
“ We are constantly consulting with the Republicans . There is a constant professional consultation on this issue . We think that the lower the taxes on labor and businesses the more it helps in terms of competitiveness .”
The deal now looks dead , as economist and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich wrote :
The Trial Lawyer x 51