Mo Money Mo Politics

Column: The ‘New York Times’ gets money in politics all wrong

“Fewer than 400 families are responsible for almost half the money raised in the 2016 presidential campaign, a concentration of political donors that is unprecedented in the modern era,” the New York Times breathlessly reported last Sunday. The popularity of so-called Super PACs, which can raise unlimited funds, has allowed the wealthy to dominate the fundraising scene. “The intensifying reliance on big money in politics mirrors the concentration of American wealth more broadly.” Democracy, we are meant to believe, is at stake.

Drawing a connection between Republican dominance in high-dollar giving and the apparent increase in income inequality is a fashionable political and journalistic trend—one that makes no sense. Liberal economists say inequality has been growing for decades, as Democrats alternated control of Congress and the presidency with Republicans and often enjoyed a big-money advantage. I don’t recall the Times fretting during the 1990s, when Hillary Clinton’s husband deregulated Wall Street and the Democratic Party was rolling, sometimes drowning, in cash.

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