Look what the Kochs are buying with the spare change they find in their couch cushions
by digby
I know it’s hard to believe, but it looks as though the .001% are vastly outspending everyone else on political campaigns.
Campaign contributions are about 10 times as concentrated as income. Moreover, as both income and campaign contributions have become more concentrated in the top 0.01 percent, inequality in campaign contributions have needed to grow at ten times the rate of income growth — that is, each 1 percent increase in the top 0.01 percent share of income needed to be matched by a 10 percent increase in the top 0.01 percent share of contributions. The ruling in McCutcheon makes it that much more likely that this trend will continue unabated.
Again, the percentage of their fortunes they’re spending on this is the equivalent to the money you and I find in our couch cushions every year. They are just that rich — and they’re getting massively richer in record time. For instance, the Kochs have doubled their fortune from a combined 50 billion in 2011 to 100 billion in 2014.
Here’s a little bit of what they’re buying:
Why do I say they’re buying this? Because the article by Ned Resnikoff to which those maps are attached explains that the politicians who represent the areas with the highest concentrations of food insecurity are the same politicians who voted against funding for food stamps. These are all people who are supported by the radical billionaire plutocrats who are financing a greater and greater percentage of our politics.
They are basically saying “let them eat cake.” Where have we heard that before?
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