(The image above is from the website Salon.com.)Regular readers of this blog will know that I have warned many times that the United States democracy is quickly becoming a plutocracy (rule by the wealthy class). A large part of why I believe this is because the giant corporations, through their army of lobbyists, control much of what our government does -- and because of the misguided Supreme Court decision in Citizens United (which basically said corporations are people and money is speech), is allowing corporations to pour millions of dollars into our electoral process in an attempt to buy those elections.
But this idea of a growing plutocracy is also shown by who our members of Congress are these days. It has become so expensive to run for Congress (either House or Senate) that a candidate either has to be rich, or sell out to monied interests to have the funding to run an effective campaign. For the first time in our history, the median net worth of members of Congress has exceeded a million dollars (and now rests at $1,008,767) -- and more than half of our elected members of Congress have a net worth of more than a million dollars (268 out of 535, or 50.1%).
But many members of Congress far exceed that million dollar figure in net worth. I list below the 50 richest members of Congress (with their net worth in parentheses). Note that the list includes both Republicans and Democrats. It took a net worth of $7.47 million to qualify for the richest 50 members this year -- and why some of these richest members of Congress are willing to toss a few scraps to hurting Americans (mainly the Democrats), all are members of the growing plutocracy.
Here are those 50 members (divided by party):
REPUBLICANS
1. Rep. Darryl Issa -- California ($357.25 million)
2. Rep. Michael McCaul -- Texas ($117.54 million)11. Rep. Vern Buchanan -- Florida ($37.15 million)
13. Rep. Gary Miller -- California ($32.97 million)
15. Rep. James Renacci -- Ohio ($28.08 million)
16. Rep. Roger Williams -- Texas ($28.01 million)
18. Rep. Chris Collins -- New York ($22.5 million)
19. Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen -- New Jersey ($22.21 million)
20. Rep. Diane Black -- Tennessee ($21.24 million)
22. Sen. Jim Risch -- Idaho ($19.24 million)
23. Sen. Bob Corker -- Tennessee ($19.12 million)
25. Rep. Tom Petri -- Wisconsin ($15.64 million)
26. Rep. Richard Hanna -- New York ($15.3 million)
27. Sen. John McCain -- Arizona ($15.17 million)
28. Sen. John Hoeven -- North Dakota ($15.17 million)
29. Rep. Curt Clawson -- Florida ($13.53 million)
30. Sen. Ron Johnson -- Wisconsin ($13.52 million)
31. Sen. Jim Sensenbrenner -- Wisconsin ($13.04 million)
32. Sen. Mitch McConnell -- Kentucky ($11.97 million)
38. Rep. Scott Rigell -- Virginia ($11.29 million)
39. Rep. Trent Franks -- Arizona ($11.1 million)
40. Rep. John Campbell -- California ($10.21 million)
42. Rep. John Fleming -- Louisiana ($9.06 million)
43. Sen. Johnny Isakson -- Georgia ($8.93 million)
44. Rep. Tom Price -- Georgia ($8.87 million)
45. Sen. Rob Portman -- Ohio ($8.6 million)
46. Rep. Mike Kelly -- Pennsylvania ($8.51 million)
47. Rep. Kenny Marchant -- Texas ($8.13 million)
49. Rep. Steve Pearce -- New Mexico ($7.72 million)
50. Rep. Tom Rooney -- Florida ($7.47 million)
DEMOCRATS
3. Rep. John Delaney -- Maryland ($111.92 million)
4. Sen. Jay Rockefeller -- West Virginia ($108.05 million)5. Sen. Mark Warner -- Virginia ($95.13 million)
6. Rep. Jared Polis -- Colorado ($73.56 million)
7. Sen. Richard Blumenthal -- Connecticut ($62.06)
8. Rep. Scott Peters -- California ($45.04 million)
9. Sen. Diana Feinstein -- California ($43.72 million)
10. Rep. Suzan DelBene -- Washington ($37.89 million)
12. Rep. Chellie Pingree -- Maine ($34.47 million)
14. Rep. Nancy Pelosi -- California ($29.11 million)
17. Rep. Alan Grayson -- Florida ($26.18 million)
21. Rep. Joseph Kennedy III -- Massachusetts ($20.0 million)
24. Sen. Claire McCaskill -- Missouri ($18.38 million)
33. Sen. Tom Harkin -- Iowa ($11.85 million)
34. Rep. Brad Schneider -- Illinois ($11.71 million)
35. Rep. Lloyd Doggett -- Texas ($11.51 million)
36. Rep. Jim Cooper -- Tennessee ($11.51 million)
37. Rep. Nita Lowey -- New York ($11.48 million)
41. Sen. Kay Hagan -- North Carolina ($9.12 million)
48. Rep. Carolyn Maloney -- New York ($7.73 million)
