Donald Trump Vs George Soros: Who Is The Bigger Democratic Donor? – OpEd

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By Mitchell Blatt*

Donald Trump has defended his tens of thousands of dollars in donations to Democrats, while running in the Republican primary for president, by saying he’s a businessman and he was just donating to them to get them to give him government favors.

But were his donations really just pay-for-play? Were his donations in line with the courtesy cash other businessmen usually give politicians? Or were they more on scale with what megadonors who try to influence elections give?

To find out, Bombs and Dollars visited the Federal Election Commission’s information database (which includes everything from 1997 to 2016) and ran the numbers on Donald Trump–then compared them to an avowed Democrat and one of the biggest fundraisers in U.S. politics, investor George Soros.

What did we find out? Trump is on par–and even surpassing–Soros in terms of donating to many key Democrats.

For example, while Trump has given $7,400 to Sen. Harry Reid, who served as the Democrat’s leader since 2005 and the Senate Majority Leader from 2007-2015, while Soros has only donated $2,400 to Reid. Trump also gave $4,000 to the previous Democratic leader in Senate, Tom Daschle, also more than Soros.democrats-trump-soros

Besides just giving over $70,000 to individual Democrats who voted for Obamacare and urged its passage, Trump also donated to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Between 2004-08, when the Democrats shifted control of Senate by nine seats and took control of the Senate, Trump gave $67,500 to the DSCC.Trump-DSCC

Some of Trump’s donations were instrumental in shifting the outcome of the vote on Obamacare, which every Democrat in Congress voted for and all but one Republican, Rep. Joe Cao, voted against. But even with 59 Democrat-caucusing Senators (including independents Bernie Sanders and Joe Lieberman), the Democrats still needed one Senator to turn the tide. They got that in Arlen Specter, who was elected as a Republican before changing parties in 2009. Trump gave $2,300 to Spector in 2007 and 08.

In total, here is how Trump’s spending on Democrats stacks up with Soro’s:

Candidate Trump’s donations Soro’s donations
Charles Rangel $14,100 $0
Chuck Schumer $8,900 $8,400
Hillary Clinton $8,500 $10,450
Harry Reid $7,400 $2,400
Kirsten Gillibrand $7,400 $1,000
Arlen Specter $7,300 $0
Ted Kennedy $4,500 $0
Anthony Weiner $4,300 $0
Tom Daschle $4,000 $3,500
Chris Dodd $3,000 $0
John Kerry $2,500 $2,000
Robert Kerrey $1,000 $0
Joe Biden $1,000 $1,000
Dick Durban $1,000 $0
Max Baucus $1,000 $0

This is more money than most ordinary businessmen give, even more than Democrat-supporting businessmen.

Take Warren Buffett, for example. Buffett, the billionaire investor and owner of Berkshire Hathaway, helped fundraise for Obama in 2007 and 2012. Besides that, he’s also a billionaire, so he would face the same pressures to donate as other businessmen that Trump claims to face. But how much of his personal money did he actually give Democrats?

Since 1997, he gave $4,700 to Harry Reid, $2,600 less than Donald Trump did. Buffett gave $7,000 to Clinton, $1,500 less than Trump, and Buffett gave $2,000 less to Dodd than Trump did. They did donate equally to some candidates: $4,000 each to Daschle.

Ken Langone is the CEO of Home Depot. He also lives in New York. True enough, he did give some money to his local politicians–$15,000 to New York Senator Chuck Schumer (but $0 to Clinton)–but he didn’t give a dime to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and little to out-of-state Democrats.

Compared to Trump’s over $32,700 donated to Democrats outside his home state, Langone only gave $5,000 to out-of-state Democrats.

In fact, even Warren Buffett didn’t see fit to give to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and Haim Saban, a Democrat-supporting media executive who slept in the White House during Bill Clinton’s term, couldn’t keep up with Trump from 2004-08.Democratic-Senatorial

About the author:
*Mitchell Blatt
moved to China in 2012, and since then he has traveled and written about politics and culture throughout Asia. A writer and journalist, based in China, he is the lead author of Panda Guides Hong Kong guidebook and a contributor to outlets including The Federalist, China.org.cn, The Daily Caller, and Vagabond Journey. Fluent in Chinese, he has lived and traveled in Asia for three years, blogging about his travels at ChinaTravelWriter.com. You can follow him on Twitter at @MitchBlatt.

Source:
This article was published by Bombs and Dollars.

Bombs and Dollars

Bombs and Dollars stands to bridge the gap between academia and policy, commentary and opinions, reporting and blogging and reflects the maturity of the personal experience of its Editors, who are now early-mid career correspondents, authors and academics.

4 thoughts on “Donald Trump Vs George Soros: Who Is The Bigger Democratic Donor? – OpEd

  • February 27, 2016 at 12:53 pm
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    While the people talk about shifty liberals or otherwise the Establishment has two divisions the Republican and the Democrat Divisions. But it is still “Vote all you want. It won’t change the hidden government”

    With Trump there is a chance that America won’t be governed by the horrible collection of NeoCons, Soroses, Banksters, Central Banksters and people who start Cold Wars and Hot Wars for their own greed.

    Reply
  • February 27, 2016 at 2:22 pm
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    This article is nothing and has zero impact on Trump’s movement. Mr. Trump, according to what I have seen, has come up with an agenda reflecting many previous popular presidents of the United states and reflecting the interests of the American people. No one will be able to stop his momentum. He wants to create jobs by making favorable trade with other countries, and he wants companies to produce goods in the USA and to hire American workers. He wants to tax American money in foreign countries at a low rate in order to bring it back to the USA, a move that will provide more than one trillion dollars for the budget. He wants to rebuild the infrastructure and keeps social security and health care and Medicare to the people. He wants to go after drug traders and he wants to strengthen the military of the country without using it in useless wars. He wants to destroy the special interests and he wants to tax hedge fund managers. He is nationalist and wants to make America great again, and he may be the new Bismarck or Roosevelt. He is against Bush and Obama wars that have created refugee crisis and terrorism. He wants to work with foreign leaders such as President Putin and others. He does not want China to exploit the country by devaluating its currency: currency war. He wants to create more competitive than oligopolistic economy. And he wants to deport illegal people. He also criticized the Bush administration by removing Saddam from Iraq and gave the country to Iran. He also thinks that the Bush administration did not act on the intelligent Report before September 11, which warned for the coming attack and who was behind it. All these issues have made Mr. Trump the anti-establishment Presidential candidate. For these reasons, media, the president of the country, politicians, and war mangers are coming on TV and attacking Mr. Trump daily. Yet, his rating has been increasing and has been more popular than any creature. Other republican candidates such as Senator Rubio have a problem. For example, the best establishment candidate is Senator Rubio who knows nothing except defending Israel and containing Russia and China by making wars that the country cannot finance. Also, he tells lies by stating that four-year Palestinian children are killing Jewish people, giving a naked justification for killing children. He stated two days ago that USA had nothing to do with the falling of Qaddafi and making Libya a den for terrorists, forgetting the massive bombing of Libya. In short, we have to give Mr. Trump the credit whether we like him or not.

    Reply
  • February 28, 2016 at 1:15 am
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    The tactic won’t work. Nobody trustworthy left to vote for, so Trump it is.

    Reply
  • February 28, 2016 at 1:56 am
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    Surely, you can’t pretend that Trump doesn’t know the Washington game – he played it himself! The donations translated into many government project commissions – it all adds up to Trump’s billions. In contrast to Soros and Buffett, who want to have power and assume power with money – but not their own – by pushing heads of state into acting completely self-destructive – i.e. Ukraine, where Soros pulls the strings and pushed for the war on Donbas; Merkel, where Soros advised the open door refugee policy and that Germany should take in 1m migrants every year! Such advice is of course intended to destroy the leadership in these countries with moves that don’t have popular support. In the case of Germany, it will also dilute the “German work mentality” and turn Germany into a nondescript multicultural nation that can no longer control either the work ethics nor the education of its people. That means: a downfall of the German powerhouse economy and therefore a necessity to accept US “vassaldom”. Buffett in turn controls the banks and investment market pretty much. He calls the shots in stock increasing or decreasing in value – i.e. monetary control.

    In contrast to these power brokers, Trump paid to get business contracts. He ultimately triumphs because of his success. That he may have had some setbacks – even ones leading to bankruptcy of one project or another – that is life. He picked himself up and restored his wealth and late profile in the commercial RE wold.

    These attitudes are very different. Trump’s success with the US people is precisely because he doesn’t want to lecture, impose a view and way of thinking on them, but because he offers to rekindle capitalist business – without the “neoliberal turbo” or “casino” adjectives. That will be good for all Americans. When there are good jobs, there is social mobility and the latter makes everybody get better again every year: that is what hope and trust in the future is made of. Trump whips up the masses – not because he clowns around, but because his message is positive and constructive. While he offends many, he always also gives credit to the good effort. And people like it – who wouldn’t? In addition, all what Adil Mouhammed stated is true: Trump shows a way to live to enjoy instead of the fear wars and terrorism and a way to spend the money on America and Americans instead of wars that benefit only the .0001%.

    Reply

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