Finance Industry Makes Up Nearly Half Of Pro-Romney Super PAC's Donations
Supreme Court decision led to the creation of super PACs, which can accept unlimited donations from corporations, labor unions and wealthy individuals and use the funds to pay for advertising and other campaign expenses, as long as they do not coordinate with candidates.Hedge funds are private, largely unregulated investment pools that are typically overseen by a single manager and usually available only to high-value investors, like wealthy individuals, private banks, pensions, corporate treasuries and endowments. Private equity companies are more hands-on but are also mostly unregulated and attract the same type of investor.
The firms and their trade associations share Romney’s view that Dodd-Frank should be repealed. Investment managers also want to make sure “carried interest,” which accounts for much of their income, as well as Romney’s, continues to be taxed at the modest capital-gains rate of 15 percent.
Romney opposed changes taxation of carried interest when he ran in 2007 , although his current position is less clear .
Romney is the top choice of the securities and investment industry. His campaign has received $6.8 million with President Barack Obama a distant second at $2.3 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The pro-Obama super PAC, Priorities USA Action, has collected $175,000 from the industry.
Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs’ employees have given $670,000 to the super PAC. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Goldman employees have given more than $535,000 to the Romney campaign itself — the largest amount contributed by employees from any one company.
Neither the Romney campaign nor Restore Our Future responded to requests for comment for this story.
Top donorsRobertson is the founder of the now-defunct Tiger Management Corp. Now retired, he invests directly in other hedge funds, and has a network of “Tiger cubs” — hedge fund managers he mentored while they cut their teeth at Tiger Management.
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