What
Would It Cost to Buy the 2020 Election?
America’s wealthiest billionaires buy a national
election at $100 a vote — and still make money.
By Sam Pizzigati
December
02, 2019 "Information
Clearing House"
- Gracie Mansion, the official residence of New
York’s mayors since 1942, hosted billionaire
Michael Bloomberg for three terms.
The first of these terms began after Bloomberg,
then the Republican candidate for mayor,
spent an
incredible $74 million to get himself elected in
2001. He spent, in effect, $99 for every vote he
received.
Four years later, Bloomberg — who made his
fortune
selling
high-tech information systems to Wall Street —
had to spend even more to get himself
re-elected. His 2005 campaign bill came to $85
million, about $112 per vote.
In 2009, he had the toughest sledding yet.
Bloomberg first had to maneuver his way around
term limits, then convince a distinctly
unenthusiastic electorate to give him a
majority. Against a lackluster Democratic Party
candidate, Bloomberg won that majority — but
just barely,
with 51 percent of the vote.
That
majority cost Bloomberg $102 million, or $174 a
vote.
Now Bloomberg has
announced he’s running
for president as a Democrat, arguing he has the
best chance of unseating President Trump, whom
he describes as an “existential threat.” Could
he replicate his lavish New York City campaign
spending at the national level? Could he
possibly afford to shell $174 a vote nationwide
— or even just $99 a vote?
Let’s
do the math. Donald Trump won the White House
with just under 63 million votes. We can safely
assume that Bloomberg would need at least that
63 million. At $100 a vote, a victory in
November 2020 would run Bloomberg $6.3 billion.
Bloomberg is currently sitting on a personal
fortune worth $52 billion. He could easily
afford to invest $6.3 billion in a presidential
campaign — or even less on a primary.
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Indeed, $6.3 billion might even rate as a fairly
sensible business investment. Several of the
other presidential candidates are calling for
various forms of wealth taxes. If the most
rigorous of these were enacted, Bloomberg’s
grand fortune would shrink substantially — by
more than
$3 billion next
year, according to one estimate.
In
other words, by undercutting wealth tax
advocates, Bloomberg would save over $6 billion
in taxes in just two years — enough to cover the
cost of a $6.3 billion presidential campaign,
give or take a couple hundred million.
Bloomberg, remember, wouldn’t have to win
the White House to stop a wealth tax. He would
just need to run a campaign that successfully
paints such a tax as a clear and present danger
to prosperity, a claim he has
already started
making.
Bloomberg wouldn’t even need to spend $6.3
billion to get that deed done. Earlier this
year, one of Bloomberg’s top advisers
opined that
$500 million could take his candidate through
the first few months of the primary season.
How would that $500 million
compare to the
campaign war chests of the two primary
candidacies Bloomberg fears most? Bernie Sanders
raised $25.3 million in 2019’s third quarter for
his campaign, Elizabeth Warren $24.6 million.
Both candidates are collecting donations — from
small donors — at a $100 million annual pace.
Bloomberg could spend 10 times that amount on a
presidential campaign and still, given his
normal annual income, end the year worth several
billion more than when the year started.
Most Americans don’t yet believe that
billionaires shouldn’t exist. But most Americans
do believe that
America’s super rich shouldn’t be able to buy
elections or horribly distort their outcomes.
But
unfortunately, they can — or at least, you can
be sure they’ll try.
Sam
Pizzigati co-edits Inequality.org for the
Institute for Policy Studies. His recent books
include The Case for a Maximum Wage and The Rich
Don’t Always Win. Follow him at @Too_Much_Online.
This op-ed was distributed by OtherWords.org.
This article was originally published by "Inequality"
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