Are you ready for this? I mean, this is totally amazing.

The wealth of the richest Americans has exploded. I’m not even talking about the top 1%.I’m talking about the richest 0.1%.

In the 1990s, most Americans’ wealth grew at about the same pace. But look at what happened after 2010. The top 0.1% pulled ahead of the rest of the 1%, and everyone else.

2010. Remember that year!

Now see what happens after 2018, in part because of Trump’s tax cuts for the rich that went into effect at the start of that year. America’s richest 0.1%, are now worth more than the entire GDP of China.

What do they do with that money? Well, when they’re not just shooting rockets into space or building hideous trucks.

Billionaire political spending in presidential elections is also exploding. See what happens after the 2010 Citizens United ruling?

2010… remember that year?

And it keeps getting worse. In the last presidential election, just 300 billionaire families spent roughly $3 billion. Those families gave an average of $10 million each — roughly 100,000 times what an average donor gave.

And the super-rich are getting a big return on their “investment.” They’re getting more tax cuts, deregulation, and a government that lets them get away with busting unions, exploiting workers, and monopolizing their markets while poisoning the environment…

All so they can get even richer and accumulate even more power…so they can get even richer and…well, you get it.

But this vicious cycle is unsustainable, both politically and economically. When so much of our economy is in relatively few hands, we will inevitably get to the point where consumers cannot buy all the goods and services the economy is capable of producing. This puts the entire economy at risk.

It’s also politically unstable because it is inherently divisive — pitting losers against winners and laying the groundwork for an authoritarian state — where no one’s future is secure, including the super-rich.

So we ALL have a stake in stopping this vicious cycle.

To do this we NEED to raise taxes on the rich, not to “punish them” but to ensure that the system works for everyone. This means raising their income taxes and taxing their wealth.

And we can establish public financing for federal elections — matching public dollars to small dollar donations in order to balance the power of super-rich and corporate donors. Many states and cities are already doing this — and it works. 

Finally, we’ve got to undo Citizens United. One way to do that is for states to follow what Montana hopes to do — take away the power of corporations to make political contributions in the first place. 

Look, it’s time to get big money out of politics — for all our sakes.