“Whether it is preserving favored tax loopholes or forestalling more comprehensive reform, private fund executives spend on politics for the purpose of getting richer at the expense of everyone else,” Ricardo Valadez, private equity campaign manager at AFR, said.
Wall Street private equity and hedge funds pumped at least $627 million into the political process – campaign contributions and lobbying – during the 2019-2020 election cycle. The sum, amounting to about $858,000 each day, reflects the meteoric rise in the size and scope of the private funds industry, which has come to control vast swaths of the American economy over the last decade.
The Stop Wall Street Looting Act would rewrite the rules that shape the private equity industry, which now has about $7.1 trillion in assets and wealth under its control, so that regulation and market incentives promote productive, sustainable investment, not the wealth extraction that now is all too common.
Many organizations have come out in support of the Stop Wall Street Looting Act, the first comprehensive reform of the predatory private equity industry. This legislation was introduced in Congress today.
“I would say that there is a history of dumping on the postal service, and Congress certainly hasn’t helped the situation over the years,” said Porter McConnell, campaign director of Take on Wall Street, co-founder of the Save the Post Office coalition. “That said, stepping into this history in Louis DeJoy, uniquely ill-suited to the moment.”
AFR joined a letter urging Congressional leaders to make sure that policies across the housing continuum are comprehensively included in the Budget Reconciliation Bill, especially those with a strong focus on affordable homeownership.
AFR sent a letter to Congress in support of H.R. 3332, H.R. 4618, H.R. 4619 and H.R. 4620, and in opposition to H.R. 935.
AFR sent a letter urging the Biden Administration to take a faster pace in filling key regulatory and financial policy positions. The letter calls out how the Administration’s slow pace in these appointments has undermined its racial justice and climate change agendas.
AFR joined a letter to Congress in support of The Used Car Safety Recall Repair Act.
During the 2019-20 election cycle, Wall Street spent at least $2.9 billion on campaign contributions and lobbying to influence policy in Washington, according to a report released today by Americans for Financial Reform. That total, which amounts to $4 million a day, shatters the previous record of $2 billion set in the 2015-16 presidential cycle. The highest-ever level of spending by Wall Street banks and financial services reflects the industry’s relentless push to influence decision-making, regardless of the party that controls Congress or the executive branch.