Alice Walton, heiress to the Walmart fortune, donated $353,400 to Hillary Clinton’s “Victory Fund” and another $25,000 to the Ready for Hillary PAC.
The Walton family fortune is valued at more than the net worth of the poorest 127,600,000 Americans, thanks in large part to their aggressive lobbying to establish loopholes that benefit the very, very rich. Alice Walton is particularly prominent in donating to the lobbyists who establish and maintain these special favors for the super-rich.
Hillary Clinton insists that she is committed to establishing a regime of economic fairness that ends America’s white-glove favoritism for the one percent.
When shkrelic sociopath Martin Shkreli donated money to Bernie Sanders, Sanders immediately donated it to an HIV clinic, denouncing Shkreli’s conduct and refusing to benefit from his dirty money.
Unlike many other elected officials, Clinton has refused to publicly denounce Walmart over the company’s pay scale and anti-union policies. She gave her critics ammunition when campaign treasurer Jose Villarreal attended a fundraiser discussion and dinner hosted by Ivan Zapien, Walmart’s vice president of corporate affairs in Mexico. Zapien, who previously served as the company’s top lobbyist in Washington, maxed out in personal contributions to Clinton’s campaign last year.
Bernie Sanders has called out the Walton heirs and Walmart’s labor practices as a prime example of how greedy corporate behavior harms workers and costs billions in tax dollars. Forbes estimates that despite Walmart being one of the wealthiest corporations in history, the company costs taxpayers roughly $6.2 billion per year due to substandard wages. As a result, many workers depend on public assistance to meet basic needs.
“Today Walmart is the largest private sector employer in America. Yet many, many of their employees are forced to go on food stamps, Medicaid and subsidized housing that you pay for through your taxes because the Walton family refuses to pay their workers a living wage,” Sanders said.
Hillary Clinton Received a Massive Donation From Walmart Heiress
[Marlena Fitzpatrick García/Alternet]
(Image: Walmart broke law by firing on strike workers, must offer to re hire them – NLRB judge
[Interesting on the planet/Youtube]
(via Naked Capitalism)