New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has a wealth of campaign donors with deep pockets.
More than a third of the state’s billionaire families have contributed to the Democrat’s campaigns and the state Democratic Party committee controlled by him. That’s according to a review of campaign finance data by Too Much Information showing that 43 of New York’s 118 billionaires and their family members have given more than $8 million to Cuomo since his first gubernatorial campaign in 2010.
Eleven of Cuomo’s billionaire donors have given at least $100,000 to his campaign or the New York state Democratic Party’s housekeeping fund, described as his “political machine” in the investigation co-published by the Guardian and Jacobin.
This week, the governor shrugged off calls, including from Democratic state legislators and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, to raise taxes on the wealthy to deal with the state’s budget issues.
“You have 100 billionaires,” Cuomo said in a conference call with reporters. “You will have to tax every billionaire half a billion dollars to make it up. You know what that means? That means you have no billionaires.”
The 43 billionaires who have contributed to Cuomo have seen their net worth increase by $22 billion during the first three months of the COVID-19 pandemic from mid-March to the middle of June, according to a report from Americans for Tax Fairness and Health Care for America Now. The Forbes data they cite shows the net worth of all state’s billionaires collectively grew by $77 billion.
