Big capitalists and L.A. politicians:
A perfect partnership

Jan 21, 2008

Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa wants to pass a new telephone utility tax by ballot measure on February 5. And he has a big supporter in this effort – a company called AEG. The president of AEG has sent a letter to other big companies, urging them each to donate $100,000 for the campaign to pass the new tax.

AEG’s top executives are certainly tight with the mayor – in 2005, he supported a deal to give AEG 270 million dollars in tax breaks for a 1,000-room hotel that the company is building in downtown L.A.

As it so happens, that’s about the same amount of money the city expects to collect in a year from telephone users with the proposed new tax.

Take the last hard-earned penny from every working person and hand it out to some fat cat – that’s what the bosses’ politicians do in capitalist society.