By Libby Watson
Splinter News (4/20/18)
The Associated Press reported this morning that the nation’s six biggest Wall Street banks got a honking great $3.6 billion tax cut from the Republican tax bill, which will raise taxes on Americans earning less than $75,000 by 2027.
The tax plan, as has already been well established, is a big scam. Many activist groups worked tirelessly to try and defeat it; average Americans called their congressional offices, wrote letters, made demands on social media. It was for naught.
The six biggest Wall Street banks spent a total of $19 million on lobbying in 2017 and received a $3.6 billion tax cut. That’s 186 times what they spent on lobbying, or 18,600%.
What most Americans didn’t have that these six big banks did have is lobbyists. Dozens of lobbyists, and lots of money to pay them, and years of infrastructure and connections in Washington to make their case. They have whole teams of people, all of them well-paid, whose job it is to know how to get the policies they want in Washington, and how to stop those they don’t. They don’t always succeed, but they sure as hell did this time. …
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Trump Appointee Mick Mulvaney Casually Explains To Bankers How He Instituted Corrupt Pay-to-Play Rule For Lobbyists While In Congress
By Elliot Hannon
Slate (4/24/18)
White House budget czar Mick Mulvaney told banking executives that while he was serving in congress before joining the Trump administration, he enacted a pay-to-play scheme for lobbyists looking to meet with him. “We had a hierarchy in my office in Congress. If you’re a lobbyist who never gave us money, I didn’t talk to you,” Mulvaney explained to the 1,300 banking industry officials at the American Bankers Association conference. “If you’re a lobbyist who gave us money, I might talk to you.”
This alarming anecdote came as part of a larger call by Mulvaney encouraging banks to aggressively pursue their agenda with lawmakers. …