For the magazine Barron’sit is fair to consider this election in the US, “a battle of billionaires

▲ Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris meets with union members in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a key state for winning the election.Afp Photo

David Brooks and Jim Cason

Correspondents

The newspaper La Jornada
Wednesday, September 4, 2024, p. 27

New York and Washington. Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris has avoided detailing her positions on several issues to date, but on one she decided to be very clear. “As president, I will not ban the fracking“He told CNN, confirming reports that he had reversed his 2019 position on the extremely polluting method of oil extraction.

While this about-face is primarily aimed at attracting votes in the key state of Pennsylvania, it also gave hope to the fossil fuel industry and billionaires who are now lobbying intensively to try to modify and/or soften some of the Democratic Party’s positions on a range of issues, from expanding oil exploration in the United States to imposing new taxes on the ultra-rich.

This election cycle is projected to cost more than $7 billion, with more than $1 billion of that total donated by just about 100 individuals. It is too early to know what effect these mega-donations will have on the policies of the next president, although big-money contributions have influenced policymakers in the past.the magazine coldly points out Barron’s, specialized in the financial sector. While Harris and Trump delight in highlighting support from small donors, it is fair to characterize the 2024 election as a battle of the billionaires..

The business weekly, part of the publishing group of Wall Street Journaloffered a list of those ultra-rich, including executives at Blackstone, Renaissance Technologies, cryptocurrency magnates Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, and speculative capitalists Marc Andressen and Ben Horowitz, among others who support Republican Trump, Democrats have their own billionaires in support. In fact, Barron’s estimates that the wealthiest donors could spend more than $10.8 billion on political advertising during this election.

Research shows that billionaires’ opinions do have an impact on which policies will be implementedreports Barron’sCraig Holman of the consumer rights organization Public Citizen told the magazine that Billionaires are fundamentally changing the entire political environment. They have a lot of influence and seem to be asking for specific favors in return for their money..

Mission of lobbyists

Lobbyists do not hide their mission. Based on what we know about his past positions, the bills he has pushed and his statements in which he had taken a fairly aggressive stance against the energy industry, against the oil and gas industryexplained Anne Bradbury, director of the American Council of Exploration and Production, in an interview with the Financial Times last week, the goal is to lobby Harris to overturn measures implemented by President Joe Biden, freezing oil drilling and the construction of more liquid natural gas plants.

By the way, US oil and gas production has reached record levels under the Biden administration, and Harris herself did not focus on climate change during the Democratic Convention, all of which is of concern to the environmental movement. But in her CNN interview, Harris sought to explain her new perspective on the issue, stating that her four years as vice president have convinced her that it is possible to create new clean energy jobs without eliminating jobs generated by the continued exploitation of fossil fuels, such as the fracking. Harris is proceeding with strategic ambiguity on this and other issues, according to some of his advisers interviewed by Reuters.

Harris argues that in the dispute over this and other issues in the race against Trump – who has repeatedly called climate change a farce– For environmentalists, there is no doubt about who to vote for, and in fact, some of the largest environmental organizations have announced that they will allocate tens of millions of dollars to support his campaign.

But the biggest lobbying effort around Harris is being driven by big business and the ultra-rich seeking to convince Harris to abandon some of the proposals her boss, President Biden, has promoted, especially measures to increase taxes on them. Trump enacted, as president, along with the Republican-controlled Congress, a series of massive tax cuts for the wealthy that will expire in 2025; the former president has promised to renew them if elected, even though doing so would increase the federal deficit by nearly $5 trillion.

Harris argues that instead of renewing those cuts, she will propose raising taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals and not raising taxes on families with annual incomes under $400,000. The Democrat’s proposal is the target of an intense lobbying effort by business leaders during this election cycle.

While Harris’s campaign publicly says she is committed to her proposal, privately some of her millionaire donors are optimistic that she will change her position. In my interactions with them (I see) that the key is that she will focus on her values, but she is not an ideologue on particular programs.billionaire Mark Cuban said in an interview with the New York Times. From what I’m told, everything is on the table, nothing has been decided yet.something that other rich people agree with.

In addition, his spin on topics such as fracking offers hope to entrepreneurs. There is optimism that it is not possible that (his tax proposal) is realsaid Anthony Levie, chief executive of the cyber firm Box, in an interview with the Times.

While much of the media coverage is about the extensive relationship between billionaires like Elon Musk and other speculative investors, Trump sometimes obscures the reality that Harris also comes from Northern California, the nerve center of speculative and high-tech capitalism. In fact, Harris’ campaign just launched a new group called venture capitalists by Harris.

The exercise of democracy is becoming more and more expensive.