Sinema Is Rubbing Elbows With Wall Street CEOs and Celebrities in the Lap of Luxury… Far Away from Her Constituents, Just As She Likes It
Where’s Kyrsten Sinema today? Is she doing her job in Arizona or in Washington? Nope. She’s in Switzerland, of course. At the famous Davos World Economic Forum, where billionaires and Wall Street execs can sidle up to global leaders and hang out with celebrities in the elitist, most rarefied of settings. As far away from her constituents as possible, and in the lap of luxury. Just as Sinema likes it.
And of course, Sinema will get to spend time with her Wall Street allies who have lobbied for many of the same special tax breaks and loopholes for corporations and billionaires that Sinema has championed.
Here are a few notable details related to Sinema’s Davos trip:
- Sinema is rubbing elbows with major players who ran well-funded campaigns to defeat any tax increases for billionaire corporations and Wall Street.
- Several significant members of The Business Roundtable are to feature at Davos, including JPMorgan Chase’s CEO, the head of Blackrock, the CEO of Hewlett Packard, and an executive at Bain & Company. The Business Roundtable explicitly opposed President Biden’s proposals to make corporations pay their fair share of taxes and vowed to wage a “significant, multifaceted campaign” against them.
- One of the dark money groups that The Business Roundtable has funded, Center Forward, ran ads for months in Arizona to support Sinema’s opposition to the tax and drug pricing components of the Biden agenda.
- Sinema was reportedly attending Davos with Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase.
- Sinema’s former longtime Legislative Director, Alyssa Marois, left Sinema’s office to lobby for JP Morgan, where she lobbied on “bills in which Sinema has played a major role,” including specifically on matters related to corporate taxes.
- JPMorgan PACs and employees have donated nearly $80,000 to Sinema’s campaigns, including over $25,000 in the 2022 cycle, while Sinema held up the Biden agenda.
- Jamie Dimon was formerly the chairman of the Business Roundtable, which opposed tax increases on corporations and Wall Street.
- On the first day of the summit, Sinema already had a “private ritzy” lunch with mulitple CEOs who lobbied to keep corporate taxes low, including Antonio Neri of Hewlett Packard – who is a key leader in the aforementioned Business Roundtable.
- Sinema was spotted speaking with former Trump Administration official — and Wall Street dude — Anthony Scaramucci about cryptocurrency.
And as a reminder, here’s how Sinema has carried water for Wall Street and these billionaire corporate executives over the last few years:
- Sinema intervened to preserve the carried interest tax loophole – which is an $18 billion per year gift to private equity executives.
- She opposed proposals to increase the corporate minimum tax and even worked to add an amendment to the Inflation Reduction Act that exempted some private equity-related companies from the corporate tax provisions.
- In 2021, Sinema successfully fought for a special tax deduction used by millionaires, including wealthy celebrities, which costs taxpayers roughly $10 billion.
- Sinema touted industry talking points to oppose proposals to eliminate the carried interest loophole or to increase the corporate tax rate.
###