Corporations that have donated to Trump’s racist PAC get ridiculous returns on their investments

The following article by Rebekah Entralgo was posted on the ThinkProgress website June 1, 2018:

CVS and Southern Co. among them.

Campaign finance watchdog MapLight published a report Thursday that exposed three major corporations for their contributions to America First Policies — a pro-Trump “dark money” PAC established last year by Trump officials that has been criticized for its use of a racist, xenophobic, and sexist phrase.

America First Policies received $1 million from gas and electric utility corporation Southern Co., $100,000 from Dow Chemical, and $500,000 from pharmaceutical retail chain CVS Health. According to disclosure forms, all three have reported lobbying on the Republican tax bill passed in December that dramatically cut the corporate tax rate from 35 to 21 percent.

For their contributions and lobbying efforts, these corporations benefited enormously from some of the Trump administration’s polices.

CVS’s $500,000 investment resulted in a $1.2 billion dollar tax break.

CVS Health was one of a number of corporations to announce employee benefits tied to the passage of the tax bill.

These employee benefits and bonuses from corporations were viewed by some economic experts as publicity stunts to curry favor with the president. Just as AT&T was seeking the approval from the Justice Department for their merger with Time-Warner when they announced tax bonuses for employees, CVS is currently seeking the administration’s approval for its purchase of the health insurer Aetna.

“It’s an extremely clever way to get the president’s attention,” said Scott Reed, the chief political strategist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce told the Washington Post. “It reinforces his signature legislative success, and it probably gets them some good points inside the White House.”

As MapLight’s Andrew Perez notes:

“Southern Company, the Atlanta-based utility company, has long opposed the Clean Power Plan, an Obama-era rule designed to limit greenhouse gas emissions by power plants. Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is working to repeal the plan. And last year, the EPA reversed its effort to ban chlorpyrifos, a widely used pesticide produced by Dow Chemical that studies show can harm children’s brains.”

It’s not just that these corporations are running a pay-for-play scheme, it’s also the issue of which organization they are sending the money to.

America First Policies describes itself as a “a non-profit organization supporting key policy initiatives that will work for all citizens in our country and put America first,” but it’s employees represent anything but.

The organization’s previous Director of Advocacy was forced to resign after a CNN KFile report in January revealed audio files of him making racist, sexist, anti-Muslim, and anti-LGBTQ comments in radio interviews.

“We’re promoting birth control to a Black woman because of the incredibly high rate of children born out of wedlock that are under-cared for or not cared for at all,” Higbie said in one interview. “The taxpayers are tired of supporting government checks going to these people who think that breeding is a form of employment. I’m sorry if Black people are the majority of the targeted audience. They are, statistically they are.”

In a separate interview in June 2013, Higbie said flatly, “I just don’t like Muslim people.”

A few weeks ago, Mediaite published a video of the organization’s policy adviser Juan Pablo Andrade saying that “the only thing the Nazis didn’t get right is that they didn’t keep fucking going.” Andrade claims he was taken out of context.

Despite its racist organizers, Vice President Mike Pence has continued to speak at events hosted by America First Policies. As recently as May 2 Pence attended an America First event, where he praised Republican U.S. Senate candidate and ex-sheriff Joe Arpaio as “a tireless champion of strong borders and the rule of law.”