Tax Big Money in Politics

In the 2024 election cycle, six individuals each spent over $100 million to help elect Republicans. Elon Musk headed the list with $291 million.[i] In total, billionaires spent $2.6 billion, and nearly three-fourths of the spending went to help Donald Trump and other Republican candidates. Over 80 percent of the amount spent by billionaires was spent through channels that were prohibited prior to the 2010 Citizens United and 2014 McCutcheon Supreme Court rulings. Billionaire spending on elections is 163 times what it was before those two rulings. [ii]

In the spring of 2025, President Trump rewarded his billionaire donors by ordering the Republican-controlled Congress to pass what he called One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB). The OBBB cut taxes for the rich and cut services for the poor. The New York Times called OBBB the most regressive major tax bill in thirty-five years. [iii]

The OBBB is the fourth time in the new millennium that the wealthiest Americans have received a tax cut. This is an example of big money donors obtaining legislation that is the opposite of what Americans want. Seventy-nine percent of voters, including 70 percent of Republicans, want the wealthiest Americans to pay more taxes.[iv] Meanwhile, the federal minimum wage is stuck at $7.25 per hour, even though 74 percent of Americans want it raised to $20 per hour.[v] 

Big money in politics has increased inequality. From 1989 to 2025, the share of total wealth held by the top 0.1 percent increased from 8.6 percent to 14.4 percent. Over the same thirty-six years, the bottom half has seen its share of the nation’s wealth decrease from 3.5 percent to 2.5 percent, a 29 percent increase.[vi] The result is 228 million Americans living paycheck to paycheck.[vii]

Tax Certain Campaign Contributions

The Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling prohibits Congress from limiting contributions from corporations to super-PACs.[viii]  However, Congress could pass a law that taxes campaign contributions from corporations, unions, and other non-humans. The Court’s McCutcheon ruling prevents Congress from limiting the amount an individual may contribute during a two-year period to federal candidates, parties, and political action committees.[ix] Congress could tax aggregate individual campaign contributions above a certain limit per election cycle. Because the return on campaign contribution can be quite high, the tax should be high, such as 500 or more percent.

The current Roberts’ Supreme Court should uphold such a law for two reasons. First, Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution grants Congress the power to lay and collect taxes, and second, the Roberts’ Court has already upheld Congress’ power to tax. In 2012, the Court upheld the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate because it was a valid exercise of Congress' taxing power in NFIB v. Sebelius, and in 2026, the Supreme Court struck down President Trump’s tariffs in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, citing that the power to tax resides in Congress.[x] [xi]

With big money removed from politics, Presidential candidates could accept federal funding from the Presidential Election Campaign Fund (PECF). From 1976 to 1996, every major Presidential candidate participated in the PECF matching fund. After the Citizens United and McCutcheon rulings, unlimited fundraising became possible, and John McCain was the last major party nominee to accept public financing through the PECF in 2008.[xii]

By reducing the effect of big money in politics, hopefully members of Congress will enact legislation that reflects the will of the people instead of the will of big money donors.

Eighty-eight percent of Americans want big money out of politics.[xiii] Promising to tax certain campaign contributions could help Democrats secure both houses of Congress in the 2026 midterms. With control of Congress, Democrats could include taxing certain campaign contributions into a 2027 budget bill, and such a tax could reduce the influence of big money in politics and help Democrats win the 2028 and future elections.

[i]       Thomas Edsall, “The Trump 1 Percent Fan Club Has a Lot of New Members,” New York Times, February 24, 2026, https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/24/opinion/trump-1-percent-elites-taxes.html.

[ii]       Rachel Funk Fordham, “Citizens United and the Decline of US Democracy: Assessing the Decision’s Impact 15 Years Later,” Roosevelt Inistitute, October 2025, https://rooseveltinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/RI_Citizens-United-15-Years-Later_Report_202510.pdf.

[iii]     Emily Badger, Alicia Parlapiano and Margot Sanger-Katz, “Trump’s Big Bill Would Be More Regressive Than Any Major Law in Decades,” New York Times, June 12, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/06/12/upshot/gop-megabill-distribution-poor-rich.html

[iv]      Eli Yokley, “Ahead of GOP Tax Fight, Republican Voters Increasingly Want to See the Rich Pay More,” Morning Consult, April 16, 2025, https://pro.morningconsult.com/analysis/trump-tax-cuts-republican-voters-april-2025

[v]       Sharon Zhang, “74 Percent of Voters Support Raising Federal Minimum Wage to $20 an Hour,” Truthout, May 30, 2023, https://truthout.org/articles/74-percent-of-voters-support-raising-federal-minimum-wage-to-20-an-hour/.

[vi]       Edsall, “The Trump 1 Percent Fan Club Has a Lot of New Members,” see note i.

[vii]      Jessica Gibson, “Living Paycheck to Paycheck? You're Not Alone—67% of People Are in 2025,” Investopedia, https://www.investopedia.com/living-paycheck-to-paycheck-youre-not-alone-67-percent-of-people-are-in-2025-11812027.

[viii]     Adam Winkler, We the Corporations: How American Businesses Won Their Civil Rights (Liveright, 2018).

[ix]      McCutcheon, et al. v. FEC, Federal Election Commission, accessed March 27, 2025, https://www.fec.gov/legal-resources/court-cases/mccutcheon-et-al-v-fec/.

[x]        Valarie Blake, “The Constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act: An Update,” AMA Journal of Ethics, November 2012, https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/constitutionality-affordable-care-act-update/2012-11

[xi]     "Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump." Oyez, www.oyez.org/cases/2025/24-1287. Accessed 2 Apr. 2026.

[xii]     Renu Zaretsky, “What’s to Become of the Presidential Election Campaign Fund?,” Tax Policy Center, June 5, 2024,  https://taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/whats-become-presidential-election-campaign-fund,

[xiii]     Ashely Balcerzak, “Study: Most Americans Want to Kill ‘Citizens United’ with Constitutional Amendment,” Center for Public Integrity, May 10, 2018, https://publicintegrity.org/politics/study-most-americans-want-to-kill-citizens-united-with-constitutional-amendment/.