Billionaires and Stealth Politics

232 Pages·2018·2.54 MB·English

by  Benjamin I. Page

Billionaires and Stealth Politics

Billionaires and Stealth Politics
benjamin i. page
jason seawright
matthew j. lacombe
the university of chicago press chicago and london
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2019 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner
whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical
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Published 2019
Printed in the United States of America
28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 1 2 3 4 5
isbn- 13: 978- 0- 226- 58609- 0 (cloth)
isbn- 13: 978- 0- 226- 58612- 0 (paper)
isbn- 13: 978- 0- 226- 58626- 7 (e- book)
doi: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226586267.001.0001
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Page, Benjamin I., author. | Seawright, Jason, author. | Lacombe, Matthew J., author.
Title: Billionaires and stealth politics / Benjamin I. Page, Jason Seawright,
Matthew J. Lacombe.
Description: Chicago ; London : The University of Chicago Press, 2019. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018031838 | isbn 9780226586090 (cloth : alk. paper) |
isbn 9780226586120 (pbk. : alk. paper) | isbn 9780226586267 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Billionaires—Political activity—United States. |
Rich People—Political activity—United States. | Wealth—Political aspects. |
United States—Politics and government—21st century.
Classification: LCC hc79.w4 .p34 2018 | ddc 320.973086/21—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018031838
♾ This paper meets the requirements of ansi/niso z39.48– 1992 (Permanence of Paper).
Contents
Figure and Tables vii
Preface ix
Introduction 1
chapter 1. Who the Billionaires Are 10
chapter 2. Stealth Politics on Taxes and Social Security 25
chapter 3. Four Billionaires Up Close 54
chapter 4. Keeping Quiet on Social Issues 77
chapter 5. Reshaping State and Local Politics 100
chapter 6. What Is to Be Done about Billionaires? 126
Appendixes 145
1. Comparison between 2013 and 2016 Forbes Lists 145
2. Keywords Used for Taxation and Social Security Searches 148
3. Position Taking among Forbes Top 100 on Economic Issues 148
4. Position Taking among Forbes Top 100 on Social Issues 151
5. Keywords Used for Social Issue Searches 155
Notes 157
References 181
Index 203

Figure and Tables
figure
4.1 Perceived Threat of Immigration and Importance of the Goal of
Reducing Illegal Immigration, 1994– 2016 / 93
tables
2.1 Frequencies of Statements on Taxes and Social Security / 39
2.2 Regression Predicting Number of Statements about Taxes / 40
2.3 Regression Predicting Directionality of Statements about
Taxes / 41
2.4 General Political Activity by the One Hundred Wealthiest
Billionaires / 43
2.5 Frequency of Billionaires’ Policy- Related Actions on Taxes and
Social Security / 44
2.6 Regression Predicting Directionality of Nonstatement
Actions on Taxes and Social Security / 45
2.7 Regression Predicting Bundling or Hosting at Least One
Fund- Raiser / 46
4.1 Frequencies of Policy- Related Actions on Social Issues / 83
4.2 Frequencies of Statements on Social Issues / 84
4.3 Frequencies of Statements on Abortion, Same- Sex
Marriage, and Immigration / 85
4.4 Correlations of Wealth and Visibility with Statements and Actions
on Social Issues / 89
4.5 Regression Predicting Number of Same- Sex Marriage
Statements / 91
viii figure and tables
4.6 Regression Predicting Direction of Nonstatement Actions on
Same- Sex Marriage / 92
4.7 Regression Predicting Number of Immigration Statements / 95
5.1 Boundary- Control Expectations / 111
5.2 Firth Logistic Regression Model Predicting Use of Boundary
Control / 115
5.3 Estimated Effects of Changes on Boundary- Control Independent
Variables / 116
Preface
This book grew out of a collaborative study of multimillionaires: the
Survey of Economically Successful Americans and the Common
Good, or SESA. A survey of the top one to two percent of wealth holders
in the Chicago area, conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago,
SESA was the first study of the political attitudes and actions of a rep-
resentative sample of wealthy Americans. The findings— some of them
noted in this book— seemed interesting. We hoped to build on them by
conducting a definitive survey of a representative sample of multimillion-
aires across the United States as a whole.
For a good part of two years, we tried to assemble a consortium of
foundations or wealthy individuals who would provide the millions of
dollars required to select, contact, and conduct personal interviews with
a truly representative, nationwide sample of multimillionaires. No luck.
Meanwhile, however, one of us (Jason Seawright) was germinating a quite
different idea. Why settle for multimillionaires, those notorious (perhaps
unfairly notorious) “one- percenters,” whose wealth was paltry compared
to that of the very wealthiest Americans? Why not go for the wealthiest
of all: billionaires? Billionaires would be impossible to interview, but per-
haps publicly available information about them— if comprehensively gath-
ered and carefully analyzed— could tell us a lot.
Accordingly, Seawright devised the systematic “web-s craping” tech-
nique for studying billionaires that is described in chapter 2 below. Ben-
jamin Page signed on. Matthew Lacombe— then a graduate student at
Northwestern University— was persuaded to combine his dissertation
research on the NRA and gun control with major attention to the politics
of billionaires. We obtained some generous— and, as it turned out, very
patient— financial support. We hired a number of research assistants. We