Dem
47
GOP
53
That is the headline of Paul Krugman's column yesterday in which he shows that billionaires are taking over the country and how they are doing it. Now, money has always talked in politics, but never this loudly, not even in the gilded age when billionaires like John D. Rockefeller roamed the land. Krugman's column draws heavily on this report from Americans for Tax Fairness.
Rich people owning media companies and using that for political ends was common in the 19th century. Media meant newspapers then, and newspaper barons like Horace Greeley, William Randolph Hearst, Joseph Pulitzer, and E.W. Scripps certainly used their papers to sway public opinion their way. Now it is Jeff Bezos (owns The Washington Post), David Ellison (owns CBS, trying to get CNN), Elon Musk (owns eX-Twitter), and others.
As a result of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, billionaires can spend as much as they want trying to buy elections, as long as they have a fig leaf of having their super PACs not openly coordinate with campaigns (although even that is under fire now). Here is a chart Krugman presents about the relative contributions of billionaires to campaigns before and after Citizens United:
A small part of the increase since 2010 is due to the larger number of billionaires (was 404, is now 748) but not all are politically active. The main driver is that wealth is now more concentrated in a smaller percentage of the population than ever before. The billionaires represent the top 0.0002% of the population, so it is not the top 1% or even the top 0.1%. It is the top 1/5000th of the top 1%.
And the billionaires are more willing to throw their money around than ever before. First, the more money you have, the bigger the payout. If someone with $300 billion can spend $1 billion and see his assets go up 1%, it is a good deal. This provides plenty of motivation for the very top to spend generously. Second, there are some people with so much money that they can buy anything. Musk spent $44 billion he found under his couch cushions to buy eX-Twitter and didn't miss it. Twenty years ago nobody had that kind of money available to throw away on politics. Third, billionaires carefully spend money in ways to change the rules to make people with money get even more power. Investments in the Heritage Foundation and Federalist Society resulted in Supreme Court justices who voted to eliminate all limits on what plutocrats could spend on elections and policy.
Some billionaires use their power to make yet more money, although it is hard to imagine what someone with $100 billion wants to buy that requires another $100 billion. It is simply a game to them, with bragging rights as you move up the Forbes list of billionaires. Other billionaires want to use their money to show and encourage their values. When Musk bought eX-Twitter, he didn't do that because he expected it to be worth $88 billion in a few years. He did it because he wanted to provide a safe space for white supremacists and Nazis. Sheldon and Miriam Adelson have given hundreds of millions of dollars to Republicans because they expect them to support Israel in return. (V)