Citizens United Quotes

“The [carried-interest] loophole was in essence an accounting trick that enabled hedge fund and private equity managers to categorize huge portions of their income as ‘interest,’ which was taxed at the 15 percent rate then applied to long-term capital gains. This was less than half the income tax rate paid by other top-bracket wage earners. Critics called the loophole a gigantic subsidy to millionaires and billionaires at the expense of ordinary taxpayers. The Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank, estimated that the hedge fund loophole cost the government over $6 billion a year—the cost of providing health care to three million children. Of that total, it said, almost $2 billion a year from the tax break went to just twenty-five individuals.”
― Jane Mayer, Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right

“Despite their having no real bodies, the American legal system treats corporations as legal person, as if they were flesh-and-blood human beings.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

“The Citizens United decision profoundly changed American politics. The Court’s ruling effectively lifted any limitations on American corporations’ political expenditures. The ruling permitted for-profit corporations to use corporate funds for campaign contributions to support candidates and issues. It also permitted wealthy and well-connected individuals to form corporations as vehicles to solicit, collect, and disperse funds, with little to no transparency.”
― Tom C.W. Lin, The Capitalist and the Activist: Corporate Social Activism and the New Business of Change

“Because of legal expansions in corporate rights and changes in corporate social practice, the most powerful people in the world in many contexts are corporations and the people who run them. Corporations are like superheroes (or supervillains) in many ways. They possess a (liability) shield, never die, leverage the powers of others as their own, and move the world through their actions.”
― Tom C.W. Lin, The Capitalist and the Activist: Corporate Social Activism and the New Business of Change