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Antoine Gara (“Private equity avoids high taxes on $1tn of fees amid fury over ‘absurd loophole’”, Report, June 14) reminds us that all recent American presidents have vowed to end the special tax treatment of buyout managers’ fees — where actual income is treated as lower-taxed capital gain — but ultimately have retreated in face of industry pressure.
In the 1980s, when Big Pharma fielded two lobbyists for every member of Congress (it now has about three), it set about to eliminate the prohibition on advertising prescription drugs, a prohibition that every western European democracy still retains. Even Chuck Schumer, a liberal who is Democratic leader in the Senate and might be expected to vigorously oppose this Big Pharma victory — and Big Finance’s victories in getting the heinous “carried interest loophole” enacted — always retreats under this “industry pressure”.
I believe that we can never reduce our Gini index of inequality (the highest of any democracy) until we reform our campaign finance laws so that it is no longer possible for powerfully rich economic sectors to buy politicians — the commonweal be damned.
Stanley M Guralnick
Retired Historian and Banker
Boulder, CO, US
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