Billionaires spent record amounts on the 2022 elections in the U.S.

Washington, May 17 (RHC) According to a report available on Wednesday, billionaires in the United States donated record amounts in the 2022 midterm elections and their collective contributions to congressional candidates exceeded one billion dollars for the first time.

An analysis by the group Americans for Tax Fairness, the contribution made last year was nearly 75 percent more than the total spending by tycoons in the last midterm elections, in 2018, and 300 times more than what was given by them to races for the Legislature 12 years ago.

"The billion from the wealthy, contributed by fewer than 500 individuals, accounted for roughly one in every nine dollars raised from all sources in 2022," the study continued, noting that 15 of the nation's wealthiest households were responsible for $658 million, or nearly two-thirds, of the contributions.

"Billionaires spending on a democracy shopping spree should alert us all to the threat posed by nearly unlimited wealth applied without limits to our choices," the group's executive director, David Kass, said of the findings.

One of the known solutions to the problem, he said, is to tax the largest sources of multi-billion-dollar wealth, which are often lightly taxed or not taxed at all.

He added that tax reform should impose levies on wealth, and close the base loophole that allows investment gains to remain tax-free forever.

"All that is needed is for Congress to heed the call of the American people to dismantle a corrupt system," Kass opined.

However, in the view of experts, the makeup of Congress makes it exceptionally difficult to pass any legislation, including the campaign finance reforms that critics of billionaires' influence in the U.S. political system have increasingly demanded.

The most recent Americans for Tax Fairness report, however, again remarked on "the threat posed by billionaire political spenders to the nation's democracy." (Source: PL)