Ballot Buying Billionaires

What would you buy if you had all the money in the world? A big house, a fast car, all the usual things? Well a new study out of Brookings Institution gives us an inside look at the wishlist of the RICHEST people in this country. You might be surprised to learn that what THEY’RE trying to buy, YOU might already have for sale.

By now, you’re probably familiar with our segment, “You get what you vote for.” Every once in a while, we take a few moments and point out a politician’s blunders. It seems like easy prey. And look, we’re not the first to do this. Political cartoons literally date back hundreds of years. Leonardo da Vinci is credited with some of the earliest political caricatures, while here in the States, Benjamin Franklin was the first to mock a political idea with a cartoon.

So while it may be easy to point a finger at Washington and blame them for all of America’s problems, the voters are also very much responsible, especially in the case of incumbent lawmakers. Elections matter. Politics really matters. The laws that will outline the rest of our lives and the lives of our children hinge directly on the people we elect to office. And yet, far too often, votes are cast, elections won and lost all because of BIG money spending.

In recent years, a new layer of political bureaucracy has started to unfold. Corporate cronies. Billionaires buying votes. Super PACs and their endless bombardment of TV ads. Pummelling the public with unfiltered opinion, harsh criticism and character assassination. At first glance, it almost seems like a modern version of political cartoons. Let’s face it, the newspaper is slowly dying off, and TV is much more accessible than the Sunday comic anyways. But behind these carefully crafted, well-funded campaigns is a small group of EXTREMELY rich people who are literally BUYING public opinion to influence elections.

Thanks to this new research, here’s a look at the 25 BILLIONAIRES who are funding and driving this new wave of political activism. Some of these names, you’ve heard of. The Koch brothers. Bill and Melinda Gates. Michael Bloomberg. The list goes on and on. Each billionaire living comfortably with generational wealth, using large portions of their money to buy elections.

So while we will continue to point out politicians blunders, we will also keep a close eye on the corporate cronies who are doing everything they can to buy as many votes as possible. As award winning author Richard Reeves says in his book, Freedom AND the Press, the American press is tougher on government than on business for obvious reasons. Corporations OWN newspapers and television stations, government does not. Corporations SUE newspapers and television stations, government does not. And so, reporters tend to know a lot more about government than they do about business.

Here at WHDT, we’re not just covering news out of Washington, we’re also watching Wall Street. In one way or another, the two are far more intertwined than most corporations want you to believe.