Whowhatwhy's Podcasts

As the new chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Richard Neal (D-MA) is being showered with campaign contributions — more than a half million dollars in the first quarter of 2019. Journalist David Daley, who lives in Neal’s district, reviewed the fundraising and spending reports in a recent column in the Boston Globe (see link below). He found contributions from lobbyists and the corporate interests they work for, like Amazon, GE, Deloitte, Eastman Chemical — and most of those corporations paid no federal taxes last year. One donor, H&R Block, saw progress on a longtime legislative goal: banning the IRS from providing its own online tax preparation system. Federal Election Commission filings show that Neal spent over $467,000 in the first quarter, much of it for big-dollar fundraising events at five-star restaurants, extravagant hotels — including a Ritz-Carlton — and on luxury suites at sporting events and concerts. Neal is leading the Democrats’ effort to get the Internal Revenue Service to