{"id":487204,"date":"2022-01-26T22:29:20","date_gmt":"2022-01-26T22:29:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/radiofree.asia\/?guid=7a9b9b7ca95bfe863738496de46a5cb2"},"modified":"2022-01-26T22:29:20","modified_gmt":"2022-01-26T22:29:20","slug":"since-citizens-united-billionaires-are-spending-nearly-1b-more-on-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2022\/01\/26\/since-citizens-united-billionaires-are-spending-nearly-1b-more-on-elections\/","title":{"rendered":"Since \u201cCitizens United,\u201d Billionaires Are Spending Nearly $1B More on Elections"},"content":{"rendered":"<a href=\"https:\/\/truthout.org\/articles\/since-citizens-united-billionaires-are-spending-nearly-1b-more-on-elections\/\"><img width=\"200\" height=\"129\" src=\"https:\/\/truthout.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/2022_0126-scotus-sale-200x129.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"A sign reads Democracy Is Not For Sale, held up outside Supreme Court building during Citizens United protest\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/truthout.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/2022_0126-scotus-sale-200x129.jpg 200w, https:\/\/truthout.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/2022_0126-scotus-sale-400x258.jpg 400w, https:\/\/truthout.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/2022_0126-scotus-sale-1200x774.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/truthout.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/2022_0126-scotus-sale-800x516.jpg 800w, https:\/\/truthout.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/2022_0126-scotus-sale-1536x990.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/truthout.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/2022_0126-scotus-sale-2048x1321.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/truthout.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/2022_0126-scotus-sale-2400x1548.jpg 2400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/a><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Billionaires are spending nearly 40 times more on elections than they were 12 years ago thanks to the Supreme Court\u2019s <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Citizens United<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> decision, a new report has found.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Analyzing campaign contribution data, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/americansfortaxfairness.org\/issue\/billionaires-spending-39-times-federal-elections-since-citizens-united-supreme-court-decision-2010\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Americans for Tax Fairness found<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that billionaires have increased their donations from $31 million total during the 2010 election cycle to a whopping $1.2 billion in the 2020 election cycle, or about 39 times more. 2020\u2019s total doesn\u2019t even include the $1.4 billion total that Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer contributed to their own campaigns, the report noted.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Overall, nearly 40 percent of all billionaire election spending since 1990 took place in 2020, totalling about 9.3 percent of federal campaign contributions. About 55 percent of donations went to Republicans.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Billionaire donations appear to be on an upward trend. In 2016, billionaires spent a staggering $682 million on campaign contributions, or about half of their spending in 2020. In 2012, billionaires <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/americansfortaxfairness.org\/billionaire-politics\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">spent about<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> $233 million.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">BREAKING: New analysis finds that America&#8217;s 661 billionaires pumped $1,200,000,000 into the 2020 elections.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s double what they contributed in 2016, and 39x more than they contributed before Citizens United was decided.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s been 12 years. It&#8217;s time to <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/EndCitizensUnited?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#EndCitizensUnited<\/a>. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/BXRE6bdeNw\">pic.twitter.com\/BXRE6bdeNw<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Americans For Tax Fairness (@4TaxFairness) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/4TaxFairness\/status\/1484543622859083778?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 21, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is vastly more than billionaires spent prior to <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Citizens United<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. In the 2008 presidential election cycle, billionaires donated about $17 million, according to a report by Americans for Tax Fairness and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/nicholasreimann\/2020\/07\/01\/billionaires-spent-41-times-more-on-2016-election-compared-to-2008\/?sh=348079f1d8c5\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the Institute for Policy Studies<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> last year. This means that billionaires spent over 70 times more on elections in 2020 than in 2008, before the controversial Supreme Court decision.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In January of 2010, conservative Supreme Court justices ruled in their <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Citizens United<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> decision that restricting corporate donations was a violation of corporations\u2019 First Amendment rights \u2013 a decision that granted individual rights to corporations and enabled them to spend unlimited amounts of money on campaign contributions. As a result of this decision, vast amounts of money from corporate and deep-pocketed interests have been funneled into elections. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Citizens United<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> paved the way for the rise of super PACs, which can spend unlimited amounts on campaigns as long as they\u2019re not officially coordinating events with candidates. This has been a vehicle for billionaires to majorly influence elections, Americans for Tax Fairness notes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cOn this anniversary of the disastrous <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Citizens United<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> decision, the escalating campaign donations of billionaires offer the clearest argument possible for why we have to get big money out of politics,\u201d said Frank Clemente, executive director of Americans for Tax Fairness. \u201cWeak taxation of the wealthy combined with anemic regulation of campaign fundraising have handed America\u2019s billionaires outsized political influence to go along with their huge economic clout.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Campaign donations serve as an investment for the ultrarich. Indeed, one of the reasons why billionaires are donating more money than before is because they have been allowed to accrue unlimited wealth <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2021\/06\/08\/us\/politics\/income-taxes-bezos-musk-buffett.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">virtually tax-free<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">; right now, that wealth <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/truthout.org\/articles\/worlds-10-richest-men-doubled-their-wealth-as-many-lost-all-during-pandemic\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">is accumulating faster than ever<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. While $1.2 billion is an unfathomable amount of money for a very small group of individuals to have contributed, it is less than 0.1 percent of billionaire wealth, the report found.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The ultrarich are allowed to hoard this wealth largely because their campaign contributions to politicians incentivize lawmakers to implement tax breaks for the rich, creating a vicious cycle where the two groups feed off each other while the public is left to suffer.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One way to break the cycle, progressive advocates have said, is for lawmakers or officials to overrule <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Citizens United<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. \u201cCorporations are not people, and billionaires shouldn&#8217;t get to use their enormous wealth to pick and choose who they want in office,\u201d Americans for Tax Fairness wrote. \u201cIt&#8217;s well beyond time for Citizens United to go, and to put real action towards getting big money out of politics. Our democracy depends on it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"syndicated-attribution\">This post was originally published on <a href=\"https:\/\/truthout.org\/articles\/since-citizens-united-billionaires-are-spending-nearly-1b-more-on-elections\/\">Latest \u2013 Truthout<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/truthout.org\/articles\/since-citizens-united-billionaires-are-spending-nearly-1b-more-on-elections\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"200\" height=\"129\" src=\"https:\/\/truthout.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/2022_0126-scotus-sale-200x129.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"A sign reads Democracy Is Not For Sale, held up outside Supreme Court building during Citizens United protest\" loading=\"lazy\"><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"entry-summary\">Billionaires spent $1.2 billion on the 2020 election \u2013 about 70 times what they spent on campaign donations in 2008.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1459,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1704,10340,17640,361,4,1369,5944],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487204"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1459"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=487204"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":487205,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487204\/revisions\/487205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}