releases: https://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/must-read/how-wal-mart-stole-christmas_and-hijacked-american-politics
Data license: MIT · Data source: dwillis/congress-press
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| url | title | date | year | month | party | chamber | state | member_name | bioguide_id | domain | scraper | source | date_source | text | has_text | collected_at | updated_at |
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| https://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/must-read/how-wal-mart-stole-christmas_and-hijacked-american-politics | How Wal-Mart stole Christmas and hijacked American politics | 2015-11-27 | 2015 | 2015-11 | Independent | House | VT | Bernard Sanders | S000033 | www.sanders.senate.gov | legacy | How Wal-Mart stole Christmas and hijacked American politics By: Sean McElwee Friday, November 27, 2015 When retail workers want something, they ask their employers, get denied, get bullied and sometimes fired. Sometimes, they take to the streets, as they have for the last three years on Black Friday. By contrast, when retailers want something, they scurry to the halls of Congress, where they purchase influence with their exorbitant profits. The largest big-box retailers have spent a total of $111 million since the 2000 election cycle on lobbying and campaign contributions. During the 2014 election cycle, big-box retailers spent $30 million on federal campaign contributions and lobbying, which is almost six times what they spent in 2000 (after an inflation adjustment). Wal-Mart in particular is known for its status as a corporate-welfare queen; one studyestimatesthat one 300-person Supercenter costs taxpayers $904,542 to $1,744,590. Anotherestimatesthat Wal-Mart and the Walton family pull in $7.8 billion a year in tax breaks and subsidies. Meanwhile, a brand-newreportfrom Americans for Tax Fairness finds that Wal-Mart also avoids taxes on more than $21 billion in offshore profits. In its most recent annualreport, Wal-Mart openlyadmitsthat changes to government food stamp programs may hurt its financial performance.Hundreds of thousands of Wal-Mart workersmake near-povertywages. Wal-Mart certainly benefits from other favorable government actions. Changes to labor laws allow it toabuse worker schedules, although sometimes it ignores them completely and just refuses topay workers,flat out. Since Wal-Mart is a serial polluter, lax environmental standards are beneficial. Its also very concerned about taxes, trade and intellectual property. To advance these interests, Wal-Mart spent $2.4 million on campaign donations and $12.5 million in lobbying in 2014 alone. Continue reading here. | 1 | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z |