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The Best Congress Money Can Buy

     I have devoted several blog entries to indicating how our economic system moves money from the not-so-deep pockets to the very-deep-pockets of our society. Today I am going to list the top ten corporations that donated to Republican candidates, and the top ten who gave to Democratic candidates. Amounts listed are in millions of dollars, and include donations to state candidates:


Corporation
Total Contribution
Republican Recipients
Perry Homes
12.24
11.13
TRT Holdings
5.26
5.26
Chartwell
3.34
3.30
Altria
3.14
2.07
Goldman Sachs
3.06
2.08
Bank of America
2.80
1.68
Koch Industries
2.52
2.27
Home Depot
1.53
1.04
Wells Fargo
1.72
1.13
Exxon Mobil
1.62
1.30
Totals
37.23
31.26


Corporation
Total Contribution
Democratic Recipients
Time Warner
.98
.80
Google
.96
.70
D.E.Shaw
.58
.56
Prudential Financial
.55
.40
Cablevision
.46
.33
Qualcomm
.43
.33
Sony
.40
.30
Tishman
.39
.39
Carnival Cruise Lines
.37
.29
Corning, Inc
.37
.26
Totals
5.49
4.36

      The top ten corporate donors to each party contributed over seven times as much to Republican candidates as they did to Democratic candidates!
     What do they get for their money? Generally they claim that their donations are not bribes for passing specific legislation; instead the money buys access to lawmakers for top corporate executives and lobbyists. I assume that the larger the donation, the more access the company gets.
     One more point: these tables illustrate amounts that corporations are required to report to the Federal Elections Commission. Last year the Supreme Court decided that corporations are “persons,” with the right to contribute unlimited and unreported contributions to political campaigns. The amounts shown here do not include any of those funds.
     Stay tuned.
******
     In the first seven chapters I discussed the Spirit's activity in the macro world ― constructs which can be sensed, or inferred through the use of special instruments. In chapter eight I wrote about the micro world ― the space/time world of point/events. Now I wish to examine the connection between the two. First let me take you through a short history of the universe.
     Matter Matters – The Spirit Runs Through It.

The Spirit Runs Through It is available in paperback or on Kindle from Amazon.
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