There's an asymmetry at the heart of American politics. I have to get this off my chest. Last week, the House Ways and Means Committee released its proposed tax increases to fund President Biden’s $3.5 trillion social policy plan. Here’s the big thing that hit me: Democrats didn’t go after the huge accumulations of wealth at the top – representing the largest share of the economy in more than a century.
What we need is to overturn Citizens United - the SC decision that allowed unfettered big money into politics. Most people have never even heard of this and yet it drives politicians voting. Sure there's always been under the table stuff but the outright purchase of a politician by corporations was not legal until then. How do we get rid of this pernicious legal decision?
The only way to truly be able to tax the wealthy is to completely get rid of donor money in politics. Why are we so unable to do this? Billions upon billions of dollars go into electing people that are then beholden to those donors and not the people that actually elected them. The system is so inherently flawed. Get rid of donors and lobbyists, return politics to people that actually want to better the country, not just get rich or have power.
So what do we do about this?? There are over 300 different Representatives who represent different parts of the country. I can tell my Representative what I want but he is only 1 person.
That's a good question. The ultimate definition of a failed state is one that is unable or unwilling to use societies resources to meet the basic needs of its people. History proves that if the gap between the haves and the have nots becomes too large, civilization will fail. The U.S. is well on its way to becoming a failed state and even the wealthy don't want that.
The question is what will replace the current system?
What people want is honesty, integrity, fairness, and compassion. Politicians who can't deliver these don't deserve to lead. Our task is to show by example what we want. We can have differences and still be kind.
One of Gandhi's great spiritual insights is that consciousness is energy that behaves according to predictable laws. If you push it in the right way with love and compassion, it has to shift. It can't do anything else. I think that's the key.
I already got what's worth more than what I paid for my subscription by just reading this response and another comment that's posted on this article! 👍🙏🏻🙏🏻
Sorry, but the answer is quite obvious. Money rules, and our representatives are beholden to it. Rare is the human being who would put the greater good above self-preservation. We need to change the rules of the game, a complete overhaul of our political and economic systems.
& get rid of the profit motive. Seems to me it’s easiest- conceptually- to do by getting rid of the money system. We now have the digital technology to link with a democratic neighborhood to federal process, to allocate resources. Most people are not aware of the concept, bewildered by the finance/money system as a black box, thinking money is some sort of divine reality; That untruth is intentionally perpetrated by the Citizen United rulers we allow
If democracy means government responsiveness to what majorities of citizens want, we present strong evidence that in recent years, the United States has not been very democratic at all. Our analysis of some 2,000 federal government policy decisions indicates that when you take account of what affluent Americans, corporations and organized interest groups want, ordinary citizens have little or no independent influence at all. The wealthy, corporations and organized interest groups have substantial influence. But the estimated influence of the public is statistically indistinguishable from zero.
Moreover, if you simply look at how often ordinary Americans get policy changes they want, you see that they are frequently thwarted. Even big majorities — 60 to 80 percent of Americans — get the policy changes they want only about 40 percent of the time. This has real consequences. Millions of Americans are denied government help with jobs, incomes, health care or retirement pensions. They do not get action against climate change or stricter regulation of the financial sector or a tax system that asks the wealthy to pay a fair share. On all these issues, wealthy Americans tend to want very different things than average Americans do. And the wealthy usually win.
That is a good point. It begs the question of why any self-respecting citizen who works for a paycheck would be on board with the GOP which does not even pay lip service to the concept that we are all in this together. The Democrats pay a great deal of lip service to this idea, but it is just that: lip service. And it seems that that is all it will ever be as long as Citizens United stands.
Why are any of these groups allowed to make political contributions? Isn’t the Constitution for the general welfare of We the People? Are the goals of these groups Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness? As they are not people, they should have no direct influence on our politicians! I agree that the corrupting influence of these groups has been evident for way too long and the people won’t have a say in our government until their ability to “buy” politicians is brought to an end.
My question is...when did it become moderate to sit back and do nothing to stop democracy from dying, to stop the physical country crumbling to dust, to continually fall behind the rest of the first world? When did it become 'radical' to preserve democracy (especially by eliminating unelected obstacles not required by the Constitution, such as the Parliamentarian and the filibuster), to repair what is broken, to bring us up to the standards of our economic peer countries, to make not-rich people's lives suck less?
In re: the Parliamentarian, I saw a commenter on another site say they are necessary because the rules are not going to interpret themselves. WTF?? If a third party is required to interpret a congressional rule that congress itself wrote, the rule is crap and should be thrown out and rewritten. This is not rocket surgery.
If you win a million in the lotto, most of that is going to taxes. Read stories about people who've won the lotto or some great prize on a game show. Between state and Federal taxes, they don't have much in the end.
Robert, if there are only 600 american billionaires , could the dems just add a wealth tax of 30% of only the income that is more than $1 billion? why not? "As that allocation becomes ever more grotesquely imbalanced, this debate over wealth and power will loom ever larger over American politics."
Except these billionaires aren't billionaires in income, they are billionaires in assets and net worth. Those are two very different categories. Also, they aren't spending much of their own money to fund their lifestyles; they are using those assets to secure loans from banks and thus are actually spending *your* money that you deposited in those banks.
Like Constance said, and I may add, they are not idiots. You slap a 30% tax on their wealth, they will leave, the real estate and stock markets will collapse, and you will be eating out of a garbage can like in Venezuela. There is a reason out of the 12 European countries that tried it, only three are still doing it. It is idiotic.
No they will not leave, the markets will not collapse and noone will be eating out of garbage cans. Their net worth will be largely unchanged, their lifestyles with be largely unchanged, they will still be filthy rich. Do not associate my comment with that hair-on-fire nonsense.
That's because they are mentally ill. It has nothing to do with their wealth. There are soup kitchens in every major city in the country and we have to most obese people in the world at all income levels.
"...Robert Reich, Clinton’s Secretary of Labor and avid Obama supporter, wants to deny health care to old folks. They’re too expensive. He also told an audience in 2007 that most people will not live longer than their parents. Again, too expensive. He wants to force medical technology corporations to stop developing new life-saving technology...."
Well I thought you were a reasonable person in a cesspool of nonsense, but I can see you are like the rest. Yes, the markets will collapse, they will still be filthy rich (just not in the US) and you will be eating out of garbage cans. You can look up what the richest people in France did when they imposed a wealth tax. It did set their politicians hair on fire due to the law of unintended consequences.
I don't even know why I would comment on Robert 3rd Reichs page. It is an echo chamber of stupidity. I remember when he said grandma might have to die when obamacare was passed. She lived a good life and there won't be enough health care money to go around.
This really is a great piece of information. The outline of important points bolstered with even more with substantiated info. is eye opening. Could not agree more. So where do we go from here?
How to tax wealth: (It works with the three: individuals, companies, and corporations)
Say we tax Amazon on wealth, because we tax Jeff Bezos.
He would have to sell his stock to pay those taxes, meaning someone else would buy it.
It would generate revenue trice for the government, one on the sale, two on the buy, three on the wealth tax rate.
We would still always be able tax the income.
Either wealth or value would never be destroyed, nor income, and the transactions would stimulate the stock market and its value.
It is a mischievous perversion, does Biden agree with this!?... a mischievous perversion and a perfect put down for those that live from the value employees generate.
Personally I am not a big fan of taxes, I am more in favor of a strong monetary policy, a strong monetary policy based on spending on an education system that goes all the way to PhD (for those willing, some people do not like university). A world with no ideas is a world without an end in mind, it all starts with an idea!
Taxes are good only to monitor the economy, and are supposed to be in the low single digits.
Taxes as a policy is another thing, but if we are going to tax (wealth) let's do it wisely.
We have to see if the inequality is only caused by the accumulation of wealth, or if there is also a component due to continued austere monetary policy (that appears more to be the case here).
I would not be surprised if there is also an accumulation of wealth, capitalist wealth, it is normal with the excessive monetization and financialization environment we live in.
I would not be surprised to see a great loss of value all over, specially if we do not invest more in education. We have been being saved by QE and low rates policy.
In this context it is normal the ones like Bezos accumulate so much, such is the case of Jack Ma in China. Should we tax them to remove some excess liquidity and use it somewhere else and save the monetary policy for a rainy day?
We need to publicly fund all elections, ad tax unearned wealth at the same (or higher rate) than earnings. We also need to educate the American people about the myths that surround their fears to tax wealth. Charts, live discussions at community halls. Each democratic senator and congressperson must go on the offensive to educate the American people about the royal f'ng they are getting.
Here's how you get campaign finance reform: for the next 2 cycles of congress, u vote out every incumbent. We the people have the power, we just need to use it collectively. I'm guessing after 2 cycles of every single incumbent getting voted out, calls for campaign finance reform get some attention! What do ya think 🤔
In theory yes this would work - there are a few problems with this approach. First is the GQP death grip on many state legislatures and federal representatives; a good example of this is Texas. Potentially blue but forever red. Texas has huge swaths of rural yahoos that swallow the Republican message whole. Combined with some of the worst gerrymandering (probably tied with Florida), it is impossible to elect a true representative state government. What this means is that there is no "vote 'em out" possible now or in the foreseeable future. The Dem party won't invest money on Texas and see it as a lost cause (witness the Beto/Cruz senate campaign - Dem party gave little money and little support to Beto until near the end of the campaign when it was too late). Similar stories play out in other red and purple states.
Second and probably the *most* pressing problem is that it's looking like we don't have time for several election cycles. Again example with Texas, they've just put in place some seriously restrictive voter suppression laws. Throw in some replacements for the electors (for the electoral college vote) and a few more laws to allow electors to ignore the voters of their state and do what they want. The GQP is maneuvering to make any Dem win overturned or invalidated, including 2024 presidential. You'll see a lot of this play out in '22.
In other words there's some urgency that means waiting on several election cycles just won't work.
If there was a serious case that could challenge Citizens United that might work but it would have to address the arguments the SC made. The other way would be to get a law passed that limited campaign contributions AND lobbying contributions AND made it illegal for representatives to meet with corporate special interests. Fat chance of that happening. There are reps (like those in Oregon or Vermont) that would favor reform but they're in the minority.
But you're right, if folks would just freekin' vote and vote their interests we might not be in this fix.
Short term solution: every single DEM voter out there needs to write/call/email their congress rep and their senators and demand that they remove the filibuster rule and get some of this stuff passed OR we vote them out next chance. DEMs have the numbers to shake this up even in the RED states. Sure, they might be able to turn red blue in many cases, but if enough CITIZENS exercised their VOICES, then red and blue would get the message! Then we could move on to some real change over the years. Nothing is going to happen immediately...we have to be patient and use our VOTES to make change happen over time. Because, quite frankly, the DEMs are only slightly preferable to the GOP. CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM is the answer and to truly make it work, we will need a constitutional amendment...those don't happen in 1 or 2 or 3 cycles. But if we continue to vote out the incumbent at local, state and federal levels; might happen quicker than you think.
I think you are suggesting that voting rights at the national level should probably be our foremost priority. Whatever it takes, we should protect them.
Yes, that's what I would think so too. I believe the stumbling block has more to do with corporations' status as "people" than actual campaign contributions. In a nutshell, SC ruled that limiting campaign contributions by corporations restricted the corps free speech rights.
Personally I don't think corporations should have the same rights as people.
Ways around this would be to limit all campaign contributions to some small number; prohibit PACs from making contributions essentially declaring PACs are *not* people even though corporations are; making all campaign funding a function of government spending and not contributions.
But the SC is on the side of corps, both Dems and GQP, to my eternal puzzlement.
What we need is to overturn Citizens United - the SC decision that allowed unfettered big money into politics. Most people have never even heard of this and yet it drives politicians voting. Sure there's always been under the table stuff but the outright purchase of a politician by corporations was not legal until then. How do we get rid of this pernicious legal decision?
Thank you for your informative comment. I searched and learned all about what CU is.
Totally agree 👍 read my post to find out how
The only way to truly be able to tax the wealthy is to completely get rid of donor money in politics. Why are we so unable to do this? Billions upon billions of dollars go into electing people that are then beholden to those donors and not the people that actually elected them. The system is so inherently flawed. Get rid of donors and lobbyists, return politics to people that actually want to better the country, not just get rich or have power.
I think those people are the progressive democrats, but their message is drowned out by the cash invited in by Citizen United.
So what do we do about this?? There are over 300 different Representatives who represent different parts of the country. I can tell my Representative what I want but he is only 1 person.
That's a good question. The ultimate definition of a failed state is one that is unable or unwilling to use societies resources to meet the basic needs of its people. History proves that if the gap between the haves and the have nots becomes too large, civilization will fail. The U.S. is well on its way to becoming a failed state and even the wealthy don't want that.
The question is what will replace the current system?
What people want is honesty, integrity, fairness, and compassion. Politicians who can't deliver these don't deserve to lead. Our task is to show by example what we want. We can have differences and still be kind.
One of Gandhi's great spiritual insights is that consciousness is energy that behaves according to predictable laws. If you push it in the right way with love and compassion, it has to shift. It can't do anything else. I think that's the key.
I already got what's worth more than what I paid for my subscription by just reading this response and another comment that's posted on this article! 👍🙏🏻🙏🏻
Robert, by the way I love your art drawings and I think you are a talented artist !!!!
Thanks, Jim. I've always loved to draw.
Yes, not give up on drawing (and writing).
Yes, believe it or not the drawing helps, it is like putting some beautiful clothes on a beautiful naked writing.
Sorry, but the answer is quite obvious. Money rules, and our representatives are beholden to it. Rare is the human being who would put the greater good above self-preservation. We need to change the rules of the game, a complete overhaul of our political and economic systems.
Wouldn't a constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United be the solution?
& get rid of the profit motive. Seems to me it’s easiest- conceptually- to do by getting rid of the money system. We now have the digital technology to link with a democratic neighborhood to federal process, to allocate resources. Most people are not aware of the concept, bewildered by the finance/money system as a black box, thinking money is some sort of divine reality; That untruth is intentionally perpetrated by the Citizen United rulers we allow
If democracy means government responsiveness to what majorities of citizens want, we present strong evidence that in recent years, the United States has not been very democratic at all. Our analysis of some 2,000 federal government policy decisions indicates that when you take account of what affluent Americans, corporations and organized interest groups want, ordinary citizens have little or no independent influence at all. The wealthy, corporations and organized interest groups have substantial influence. But the estimated influence of the public is statistically indistinguishable from zero.
Moreover, if you simply look at how often ordinary Americans get policy changes they want, you see that they are frequently thwarted. Even big majorities — 60 to 80 percent of Americans — get the policy changes they want only about 40 percent of the time. This has real consequences. Millions of Americans are denied government help with jobs, incomes, health care or retirement pensions. They do not get action against climate change or stricter regulation of the financial sector or a tax system that asks the wealthy to pay a fair share. On all these issues, wealthy Americans tend to want very different things than average Americans do. And the wealthy usually win.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/01/23/democracy-in-america-an-interview-with-authors-ben-page-and-martin-gilens/
That is a good point. It begs the question of why any self-respecting citizen who works for a paycheck would be on board with the GOP which does not even pay lip service to the concept that we are all in this together. The Democrats pay a great deal of lip service to this idea, but it is just that: lip service. And it seems that that is all it will ever be as long as Citizens United stands.
Why are any of these groups allowed to make political contributions? Isn’t the Constitution for the general welfare of We the People? Are the goals of these groups Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness? As they are not people, they should have no direct influence on our politicians! I agree that the corrupting influence of these groups has been evident for way too long and the people won’t have a say in our government until their ability to “buy” politicians is brought to an end.
Two words: Citizens United
Exactly, so what's it going to take to get rid of them?
Exactly, so what's it going to take to get rid of them?
So if corporations are "people", shouldn't they be taxed the same as people?
Good question, hadn't really thought of it that way! I wonder what the Supreme Court would say.
ConstanceReaderjust now
My question is...when did it become moderate to sit back and do nothing to stop democracy from dying, to stop the physical country crumbling to dust, to continually fall behind the rest of the first world? When did it become 'radical' to preserve democracy (especially by eliminating unelected obstacles not required by the Constitution, such as the Parliamentarian and the filibuster), to repair what is broken, to bring us up to the standards of our economic peer countries, to make not-rich people's lives suck less?
In re: the Parliamentarian, I saw a commenter on another site say they are necessary because the rules are not going to interpret themselves. WTF?? If a third party is required to interpret a congressional rule that congress itself wrote, the rule is crap and should be thrown out and rewritten. This is not rocket surgery.
Outstanding!
You just won the lotto and got $1 million dollars. What do you buy first? A big house, perhaps?
Your company just went public and the stock jumped 35% the first week. You are a billionaire. What do you buy first? A politician, of course.
If you win a million in the lotto, most of that is going to taxes. Read stories about people who've won the lotto or some great prize on a game show. Between state and Federal taxes, they don't have much in the end.
You may have missed Norm's point.
That does seem to be a most prudent investment. Good thing for you that is also an option thanks to Citizens United.
Senator Warren, in her brilliance is spot-on Again in giving an overview of the problem, and an
Excellent Recipe/Solution; it is in the following:
THE BIG ESCAPE: How the Ultra-Wealthy Avoid Paying Taxes and How to Fix It https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/new-report-the-big-escape-how-the-ultra-wealthy-avoid-paying-taxes-and-how-to-fix-it
Isn't Bernie Sanders on the Ways and Means committee? Surely he would tax the rich and large corporations!
He's in the Senate and chairs the Senate Budget Committee.
Yes he would...if the other senators on his committee vote his way. Very possibly they won't.
Robert, if there are only 600 american billionaires , could the dems just add a wealth tax of 30% of only the income that is more than $1 billion? why not? "As that allocation becomes ever more grotesquely imbalanced, this debate over wealth and power will loom ever larger over American politics."
Except these billionaires aren't billionaires in income, they are billionaires in assets and net worth. Those are two very different categories. Also, they aren't spending much of their own money to fund their lifestyles; they are using those assets to secure loans from banks and thus are actually spending *your* money that you deposited in those banks.
No problem. They can sell off some of those assets.
Like Constance said, and I may add, they are not idiots. You slap a 30% tax on their wealth, they will leave, the real estate and stock markets will collapse, and you will be eating out of a garbage can like in Venezuela. There is a reason out of the 12 European countries that tried it, only three are still doing it. It is idiotic.
They will not leave, because a well ordered society is of great benefit to them.
Why are there no billionaires in Somalia ?
Because Somalia is a shithole. There are several billionaires in Costa Rica, Panama, Belieze and Honduras.
No they will not leave, the markets will not collapse and noone will be eating out of garbage cans. Their net worth will be largely unchanged, their lifestyles with be largely unchanged, they will still be filthy rich. Do not associate my comment with that hair-on-fire nonsense.
I think you are correct, except that plenty of our people are eating out of garbage cans today.
That's because they are mentally ill. It has nothing to do with their wealth. There are soup kitchens in every major city in the country and we have to most obese people in the world at all income levels.
It was a metaphor...
"...Robert Reich, Clinton’s Secretary of Labor and avid Obama supporter, wants to deny health care to old folks. They’re too expensive. He also told an audience in 2007 that most people will not live longer than their parents. Again, too expensive. He wants to force medical technology corporations to stop developing new life-saving technology...."
Well I thought you were a reasonable person in a cesspool of nonsense, but I can see you are like the rest. Yes, the markets will collapse, they will still be filthy rich (just not in the US) and you will be eating out of garbage cans. You can look up what the richest people in France did when they imposed a wealth tax. It did set their politicians hair on fire due to the law of unintended consequences.
I don't even know why I would comment on Robert 3rd Reichs page. It is an echo chamber of stupidity. I remember when he said grandma might have to die when obamacare was passed. She lived a good life and there won't be enough health care money to go around.
This really is a great piece of information. The outline of important points bolstered with even more with substantiated info. is eye opening. Could not agree more. So where do we go from here?
Stay tuned!
Thank you. Cannot forget this piece you wrote. It speaks volumes. I hope everyone tunes in and turns up the volume.
On wealth Tax.
How to tax wealth: (It works with the three: individuals, companies, and corporations)
Say we tax Amazon on wealth, because we tax Jeff Bezos.
He would have to sell his stock to pay those taxes, meaning someone else would buy it.
It would generate revenue trice for the government, one on the sale, two on the buy, three on the wealth tax rate.
We would still always be able tax the income.
Either wealth or value would never be destroyed, nor income, and the transactions would stimulate the stock market and its value.
It is a mischievous perversion, does Biden agree with this!?... a mischievous perversion and a perfect put down for those that live from the value employees generate.
Personally I am not a big fan of taxes, I am more in favor of a strong monetary policy, a strong monetary policy based on spending on an education system that goes all the way to PhD (for those willing, some people do not like university). A world with no ideas is a world without an end in mind, it all starts with an idea!
Taxes are good only to monitor the economy, and are supposed to be in the low single digits.
Taxes as a policy is another thing, but if we are going to tax (wealth) let's do it wisely.
We have to see if the inequality is only caused by the accumulation of wealth, or if there is also a component due to continued austere monetary policy (that appears more to be the case here).
I would not be surprised if there is also an accumulation of wealth, capitalist wealth, it is normal with the excessive monetization and financialization environment we live in.
I would not be surprised to see a great loss of value all over, specially if we do not invest more in education. We have been being saved by QE and low rates policy.
In this context it is normal the ones like Bezos accumulate so much, such is the case of Jack Ma in China. Should we tax them to remove some excess liquidity and use it somewhere else and save the monetary policy for a rainy day?
We need to publicly fund all elections, ad tax unearned wealth at the same (or higher rate) than earnings. We also need to educate the American people about the myths that surround their fears to tax wealth. Charts, live discussions at community halls. Each democratic senator and congressperson must go on the offensive to educate the American people about the royal f'ng they are getting.
Here's how you get campaign finance reform: for the next 2 cycles of congress, u vote out every incumbent. We the people have the power, we just need to use it collectively. I'm guessing after 2 cycles of every single incumbent getting voted out, calls for campaign finance reform get some attention! What do ya think 🤔
In theory yes this would work - there are a few problems with this approach. First is the GQP death grip on many state legislatures and federal representatives; a good example of this is Texas. Potentially blue but forever red. Texas has huge swaths of rural yahoos that swallow the Republican message whole. Combined with some of the worst gerrymandering (probably tied with Florida), it is impossible to elect a true representative state government. What this means is that there is no "vote 'em out" possible now or in the foreseeable future. The Dem party won't invest money on Texas and see it as a lost cause (witness the Beto/Cruz senate campaign - Dem party gave little money and little support to Beto until near the end of the campaign when it was too late). Similar stories play out in other red and purple states.
Second and probably the *most* pressing problem is that it's looking like we don't have time for several election cycles. Again example with Texas, they've just put in place some seriously restrictive voter suppression laws. Throw in some replacements for the electors (for the electoral college vote) and a few more laws to allow electors to ignore the voters of their state and do what they want. The GQP is maneuvering to make any Dem win overturned or invalidated, including 2024 presidential. You'll see a lot of this play out in '22.
In other words there's some urgency that means waiting on several election cycles just won't work.
If there was a serious case that could challenge Citizens United that might work but it would have to address the arguments the SC made. The other way would be to get a law passed that limited campaign contributions AND lobbying contributions AND made it illegal for representatives to meet with corporate special interests. Fat chance of that happening. There are reps (like those in Oregon or Vermont) that would favor reform but they're in the minority.
But you're right, if folks would just freekin' vote and vote their interests we might not be in this fix.
I can only conclude, that "American Democracy Is DOA" according to your arguments and i agree.
Only after a very deep crisis (somewhat similar to the Civil War) will it reemerge in a new form.
I think that is what Robert Reich was suggesting.
I weep for our country.
I would weep with you, but I'm just too f**king angry to cry.
Short term solution: every single DEM voter out there needs to write/call/email their congress rep and their senators and demand that they remove the filibuster rule and get some of this stuff passed OR we vote them out next chance. DEMs have the numbers to shake this up even in the RED states. Sure, they might be able to turn red blue in many cases, but if enough CITIZENS exercised their VOICES, then red and blue would get the message! Then we could move on to some real change over the years. Nothing is going to happen immediately...we have to be patient and use our VOTES to make change happen over time. Because, quite frankly, the DEMs are only slightly preferable to the GOP. CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM is the answer and to truly make it work, we will need a constitutional amendment...those don't happen in 1 or 2 or 3 cycles. But if we continue to vote out the incumbent at local, state and federal levels; might happen quicker than you think.
I fear that that is exceedingly optimistic given the rate at which the authoritarian movement formally known as the GOP is gaining steam.
I think you are suggesting that voting rights at the national level should probably be our foremost priority. Whatever it takes, we should protect them.
Wouldn't it be easier to work on overturning Citizens United?
Yes, that's what I would think so too. I believe the stumbling block has more to do with corporations' status as "people" than actual campaign contributions. In a nutshell, SC ruled that limiting campaign contributions by corporations restricted the corps free speech rights.
Personally I don't think corporations should have the same rights as people.
Ways around this would be to limit all campaign contributions to some small number; prohibit PACs from making contributions essentially declaring PACs are *not* people even though corporations are; making all campaign funding a function of government spending and not contributions.
But the SC is on the side of corps, both Dems and GQP, to my eternal puzzlement.