Just 158 Families Have Provided Nearly Half Of The Early Money For Efforts To Capture The WhiteHouse
Source: New York Times
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE, SARAH COHEN and KAREN YOURISH
OCT. 10, 2015
They are overwhelmingly white, rich, older and male, in a nation that is being remade by the young, by women, and by black and brown voters. Across a sprawling country, they reside in an archipelago of wealth, exclusive neighborhoods dotting a handful of cities and towns. And in an economy that has minted billionaires in a dizzying array of industries, most made their fortunes in just two: finance and energy.
Now they are deploying their vast wealth in the political arena, providing almost half of all the seed money raised to support Democratic and Republican presidential candidates. Just 158 families, along with companies they own or control, contributed $176 million in the first phase of the campaign, a New York Times investigation found. Not since before Watergate have so few people and businesses provided so much early money in a campaign, most of it through channels legalized by the Supreme Courts Citizens United decision five years ago.
These donors fortunes reflect the shifting composition of the countrys economic elite. Relatively few work in the traditional ranks of corporate America, or hail from dynasties of inherited wealth. Most built their own businesses, parlaying talent and an appetite for risk into huge wealth: They founded hedge funds in New York, bought up undervalued oil leases in Texas, made blockbusters in Hollywood. More than a dozen of the elite donors were born outside the United States, immigrating from countries like Cuba, the old Soviet Union, Pakistan, India and Israel.
But regardless of industry, the families investing the most in presidential politics overwhelmingly lean right, contributing tens of millions of dollars to support Republican candidates who have pledged to pare regulations; cut taxes on income, capital gains and inheritances; and shrink entitlement programs. While such measures would help protect their own wealth, the donors describe their embrace of them more broadly, as the surest means of promoting economic growth and preserving a system that would allow others to prosper, too.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/11/us/politics/2016-presidential-election-super-pac-donors.html?_r=0
riversedge
(70,187 posts)TexasBushwhacker
(20,174 posts)George II
(67,782 posts)Mnemosyne
(21,363 posts)Ed Suspicious
(8,879 posts)That five million likely meant less to him than my $50 for Bernie meant to me.
Gregorian
(23,867 posts)Which is why I support Bernie Sanders. He is the only candidate who is eyeing the heart of the problems we face. The people have lost their voice, and it's time to evolve into a better economic arrangement whereby we are in control of our economic destiny, instead of 198 families doing it for us, or rather against us.
grntuscarora
(1,249 posts)are doing their best to make sure the rest of us are shut out of the system.
Even with all their money, it ain't gonna happen.
Bernie 2016.
AlbertCat
(17,505 posts)Meanwhile, back at "protect their own wealth"....
NonMetro
(631 posts)300,000 people, and only 158 "families" did this? If true, not very many rich people are trying to buy congress, influence our elections, or take advantage of the Citizens United decision. Is that what the NYT is trying to say? Are they right?
Justice
(7,185 posts)NonMetro
(631 posts)By pointing out that it is simply a few families trying to buy elections? Also, they really played up this thing about these millionaires being "self made" as opposed to inherited wealth, i.e, it not people with "old money" influencing our politics, but just those newcomers?
Now, some would say I'm just suspicious of the NYT. Well, I am! I really do question their motives in playing up this tiny number of newly rich, and the "hedge fund" managers - a popular target for a scapegoat?
fasttense
(17,301 posts)That's why capitalism is such a scam. It allows for just a few top wealthy people to distort our politics to the far, far right. We need democracy in our economics so we can have democracy in our politics.
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)wolfie001
(2,227 posts)....where they belong!!!
SmittynMo
(3,544 posts)Put Bernie in there and watch CU and the oligarchy go away for good.
We have a chance to take our country back. Don't blow it away. Everyone's voice counts
ViseGrip
(3,133 posts)24601
(3,959 posts)these donors. I'd bet that HRC received significant funds while Bernie probably did not.
As it's aggregated, it's not that revealing, especially since the number of candidates in the Republican and Democratic camps are so different. For example, if the overall Republican tally was three times the amount that went to Democrats, but the Republican $ was divided by the 6 or 7 candidates, then the difference relative to what HRC collected could be insignificant. For all we know, she may have been the biggest single recipient.
Anybody out there have that breakdown?