The increasing dominance of money from the super-wealthy would be less of a problem if their attitudes were the same as those of most other Americans. The power of Democratic billionaires presumably would balance the power of Republican billionaires. But in reality the rich have quite different priorities from average Americans. Dueling billionaires are no substitute for democracy. According to a Pew Research poll, a large majority of Americans, regardless of party, are worried about jobs and wages. Yet when political scientists Benjamin Page and Larry Bartels surveyed Chicagoans with an average net worth of $14 million, their biggest concerns were the budget deficit and excessive government spending. And no surprise these wealthy individuals were also far less willing than were other Americans to raise taxes on the rich and more willing to cut Social Security and Medicare. They also opposed things most other Americans favored, such as increasing spending on schools and raising the minimum wage.
These wealthy respondents also differed from the rest of America in their political influence. In the previous twelve months, two-thirds had contributed (an average of $4,633) to political campaigns. A fifth had "bundled" contributions with others. That bought them the kind of political access most Americans only dream of. About half had recently initiated contact with a U.S. senator or representative, and nearly half those contacts concerned matters of narrow economic self-interest rather than broader national concern. Mind you, this is just the wealthy of one city, Chicago. Multiply it across the entire United States and you see who our elected representatives are listening to and why. The survey didn't even include the wealth and political clout of Wall Street and big corporations. Multiply the multiplier.
- Robert Reich, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, London, 2020, p.65-66.
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