WASHINGTON, May 17 – America’s billionaires donated a record number to the 2022 midterm elections and their collective contributions to congressional candidates exceeded $1 billion for the first time, a report said on Wednesday.
Contributions made last year were about 75 percent more than the magnates’ total spending in the previous midterm elections in 2018, according to an analysis by the group Americans for Tax Fairness, and more than 300 times what they gave for the Legislature. 12 years ago.
“Wealthy Arabs, contributed by fewer than 500 people, accounted for nearly one in nine dollars raised from all sources in 2022,” the study continued, noting that 15 of the country’s wealthiest families accounted for $658 million. were responsible for, or about two-thirds of, the contribution.
David Kass, the group’s executive director, said of the findings, “Billionaire spending sprees for democracy should alert us all to the danger posed by unlimited money applied without limits to our elections.” ”
One of the known solutions to the problem, he said, is to tax the biggest sources of multibillion-dollar wealth, which are often taxed lightly or not at all.
He said tax reform should tax wealth, and close the gap in basis that allows investment income to remain tax-free forever.
“Congress needs to heed the call of the American people to dismantle a corrupt system,” Kass said.
However, in the opinion of experts, the composition of Congress makes it exceptionally difficult to pass any legislation, including campaign finance reforms, which critics of billionaires’ influence in the American political system have increasingly called for.
However, the most recent report from Americans for Tax Fairness once again emphasized “the threat to the nation’s democracy by billionaire political spenders.”
