It’s a good thing the United States Supreme Court decided corporations were people too and gave them permission to secretly spend unlimited amounts of money on politics just in time for the 2010 elections.
Otherwise Republicans might have had a harder time winning control of the U.S. House and all of Michigan state government. Soon the real people b
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ehind the corporations–CEOs–will be cashing in.
People like Gregory B. Maffei, the kind of guy Republicans in Congress are most concerned about when it comes to giving folks a tax break.
That’s because Maffei makes more than $87 million a year as CEO of Liberty Media, the mega-corporation that owns a piece of Time, Inc. and brings you the Discovery Channel and Starz on cable TV.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Maffei, a Colorado guy, is the nation’s most highly compensated CEO. Like most on the list of best-paid bosses, Maffei spreads his political contributions around to both political parties since the ROI yields such a great payoff in tax breaks and other benefits.
Republicans, however, get most of the top paid CEO political money and some–like Exxon Mobil’s Rex Tillerson–seem to give only to the GOP, which may be the best bet of all when it comes getting a real return on your investment. Tillerson makes a mere $21.4 million a year, according to the Journal. He’s banking on getting his continued share of the $700 billion in tax breaks for the wealthiest individuals that were handed out by Congress during the Bush years.
Michigan CEOs have no reason to be jealous of their out of state corporate brothers and sisters when it comes to power and money. They cashed in big-time and will soon dominate the state Capitol as they anoint one of their own–CEO Rick Snyder–governor amid confidence that corporate taxes will be cut and as a result CEO bonuses will blossom nicely by spring.
Michigan has its own CEOs with big pay days. Whirlpool’s CEO Jeff Fetlig’s last reported annual compensation was $8.5 million and Richard Manoogian, CEO of Masco Corporation, nailed down $11.7 million in annual pay. Those two have one of their own heading the Snyder transition team–Doug Rothwell, president of Business Leaders for Michigan.
BLM is an exclusive club of 75 top Michigan CEOs representing only the biggest corporations in the state. Before the November 2 election,they were the tip of the spear in advocating sweeping cuts in corporate taxes and supporting wage and benefit cuts for hourly workers.
Now they own the whole spear and it’s no secret what’s being targeted: big tax breaks for big businesses that benefit CEOs that will eventually be paid for by all of us in the form of shifting more support for government to middle class taxpayers.