mellon, tim

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2nd 7 24 biggest donor heritage 2025

skyhorse

xian nat?

merri ok

trust fund baby? olig?

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an 12 24

The children of the richest families in the U.S. are well-known for spending their vast wealth on frivolous luxuries—constructing a replica of a medieval church on their acres of property, in the case of banking heir Timothy Mellon, or starting a brand of T-shirts describedby one critic as "terrible beyond your wildest imagination," as Wyatt Koch, nephew of Republican megadonors Charles and David, did.

But a reportreleased by Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) on Thursday shows how "billionaire nepo babies" don't just waste their families' fortunes. They also benefit from "a rigged system" that allows them to "pass that wealth down over generations without being properly taxed–often without being taxed at all."

In addition, the heirs of the country's biggest fortunes spend vast sums "to elect politicians who protect their unearned wealth and manipulate the country's economy in their favor," said ATF.

Along with Mellon and Koch, the report profiles Samuel Logan of the Scripps media dynasty; Nicola Peltz-Beckham, daughter of billionaire investor Nelson Peltz; Gabrielle Rubenstein, whose family has made its fortune in private equity; and President-elect Donald Trump's son, Eric Trump.

The nepo babies are part of a small group of billionaire families in the U.S. who benefit from tax loopholes that ensure little of their immense wealth ever goes to benefit the public good.

At least 90 billionaires have passed away over the last decade, leaving their beneficiaries $455 billion in collective wealth.

But according to ATF, "$255 billion (56%) of that amount was likely entirely exempt from the capital gains tax because of a special break called 'stepped up basis.'"

"Trump and his allies in Congress are doing their donors' bidding by rigging the system in their favor and pushing a $4 trillion giveaway to wealthy elites and giant corporations."

Without loopholes included the stepped up basis tax cut, the current estate tax on billionaires and centimillionaires would yield enough revenue to fund universal childcare, preschool, and paid family leave for U.S. workers, with hundreds of billions of dollars left over, according to ATF's report.

The wealthy heirs profiled in the report and their families are some of the Republican Party's top donors—contributing hundreds of millions of dollars to candidates including Trump in the hopes of securing even more tax cuts.

Mellon, for example, is Trump's "biggest supporter, giving $140 million to a pro-Trump PAC in 2024 alone," reads the report.

A previous analysis by ATF found that as of late October, just 150 billionaire families had spent $1.9 billion on the 2024 elections.

As the Center for American Progress found earlier this year, Trump's plan to extend the tax cuts that he pushed through in 2017 would cost $4 trillion over the next decade.

"The vast wealth inherited by centuries-old billionaire families is staggering. While these heirs and their billions go undertaxed, enormous sums are squandered on lavish mansions, private jets, and vanity projects instead of funding crucial public investments," said ATF executive director David Kass. "In 2024, these billionaire families used their enormous wealth to make record-breaking political contributions to secure a GOP trifecta. Now, Trump and his allies in Congress are doing their donors' bidding by rigging the system in their favor and pushing a $4 trillion giveaway to wealthy elites and giant corporations—all while advocating for cuts to vital programs that working and middle-class Americans depend on."

The report calls for Congress to pass "proven, pragmatic proposals to unrig the tax system that enjoy high levels of popular support," such as the Ultra Millionaire Tax Actthat was proposed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) this year. The bill would tax fortunes between $50 million and $1 billion at 2% and wealth above $1 billion at $1 billion.

The small tax on enormous wealth would generate "a whopping $3 trillion over 10 years," said ATF.

The estate tax could also be "restored so that it can play a meaningful role in promoting fairness and equal opportunities" through the passage of theFor the 99.5% Act, which was introduced in 2023 by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.).

Under the bill, the estate tax exemption would be lowered to $7 million per couple and the current 40% flat rate would be replaced with a sliding scale that would charge higher rates as a family's wealth grows.

"None of these tax reforms would impoverish the ultra wealthy, nor even inconvenience them in any meaningful way–but they would reduce the concentration of wealth that is so corrosive to society," reads the report. "At the same time, they would raise trillions of dollars that could be used to reduce inequality and improve the lives of families that can only dream of the kind of security and opportunity enjoyed by the nation’s richest clans."

"And if rich families ever did need to tighten their belts a bit to pay their taxes," the report continues, "the economizing might begin by reducing the flow of money funding the extravagant lifestyles of America's Billionaire Nepo Babies."

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Dirty tricks? Trump Super-PAC sent out a bogus Medicare cancellation notice to scare voters about Kamala Harris.One of the largest pro-Trump superPACs has dropped a massive mailing of “Medicare Cancellation Notices” letting seniors know that Kamala Harris is preparing to end the program or at least throw them off it. As David Corn reports at Mother Jones, some of the richest men in America are behind it: “MAGA, Inc. is the top pro-Trump super PAC. It has raised over $300 million during the 2024 campaign, most of it from Republican billionaires, including Howard Lutnick, the CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald; Paul Singer, a hedge fund manager; Charles Kushner, the father of Jared Kushner and real estate magnate who went to jail for tax evasion and for retaliating against a federal witness (and whom Trump pardoned); and Timothy Mellon, the reclusive heir to the Mellon banking fortune, who has pumped in over $150 million.” What could these billionaires want? If you selected “more tax cuts” and “a return to segregation” I’d bet you’d have hit it right on the nose. Meanwhile, an unknown GOP-aligned group is sending text messages to college students in Wisconsin threatening them with prison if they dare vote. These people will stop at nothing…

9 24 an

The Mellons have been one of Pennsylvania's wealthiest families since the 19th Century. The financial dynasty has a history of supporting conservative economic policies: after Thomas Mellon founded Mellon Bank in 1870, his son Andrew W. Mellon served as treasury secretary under Republican Presidents Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover.

In 2024, 81-year-old billionaire Timothy Mellon — who is Andrew W. Mellon's grandson and Thomas Mellon's great grandson — has supported GOP presidential nominee via a $50 million donation to a pro-Trump PAC (political action committee).

But according to Vanity Fair's James Reginato, not everyone in the Mellon family is on board with Timothy Mellon's involvement in MAGA politics.

READ MORE:[Right-winger Leonard Leo pledges $1B to 'crush liberal dominance'

"In the 2020 cycle," Reginato explains in an article published on September 18, "his contributions to conservative candidates and causes totaled $70 million, including $20 million to Donald Trump. And since the start of 2022, he has poured in more than $125 million to Make America Great Again, the Trump-affiliated super PAC, and $25 million to American Values 2024, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s super PAC. Tim Mellon is the most consequential megadonor of this contentious election, and the least known."

After the $50 million donation, economist Robert Reich argued that Timothy Mellon made a strong case for a "wealth tax," describing Andrew W. Mellon as "an early prophet of trickle-down economics" back in the 1920s. And Reich wasn't the first person to mention the Mellons in connection with conservative economics. Back in 1975, the iconic R&B group The O'Jays recorded a song for Philadelphia International Records called "Rich Get Richer" — which addressed income inequality in the U.S. and referenced "the Mellons, the Gettys, the Duponts, the Rockefellers."

Reginato adds, "When Tim first reached out to MAGA world to offer his largesse, they had to research him. Reportedly, he has little interest in meeting candidates or attending events, and he communicates with some by fax."

Although Timothy Mellon declined to be interviewed for Reginato's article, some of his relatives were willing to talk to Vanity Fair.

John W. Warner IV, Timothy Mellon's nephew, told the publication, "I'm just as surprised as you are about my uncle coming out. I couldn't believe he was mentioned in the press. He's the most private Mellon there is. He's been very quiet up until now."

A cousin of Warner IV, quoted anonymously, was critical of the MAGA movement.

The cousin told Vanity Fair, "My generation, and the younger generation, is unhappy about his very public support of what we think of as antidemocratic causes and candidates. Again and again, I've heard dismay about him going in this direction. One of the cousins said it just makes her sick."

Another cousin in the Mellon family said of Timothy Mellon, "He’s always been a contrarian — that’s the only thing I can think of that might have gotten him in this direction, (which) does not reflect our values."

*Read James Reginato's full article for Vanity Fair at this link.

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y mail 7 24 judd pop info

the largest donor of the 2024 presidential campaign, by far, is Timothy Mellon, the reclusive billionaire and heir to the Mellon banking fortune. Mellon was already the largest donor after donating $25 million each to the Super PACs supporting the presidential campaigns of Donald Trump (MAGA Inc.) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (American Values 2024). Then, Mellon donated another $50 million to MAGA Inc. on May 31, the day after Trump was convicted of committing 34 felonies.}:

Mellon's $75 million contribution to MAGA Inc. represents almost half of the group's total fundraising. Mellon has also donated millions more to other conservative causes this cycle.

Despite his political spending, little is known about Mellon. The most detailed account of Mellon's views comes from his self-published 2015 autobiography. "This book was not ghost-written: every single word is my own," Mellon said in a press release announcing its publication. People who wanted to purchase the book were required to make a $9 donation to Hillsdale College, a private Christian institution that aggressively promotes right-wing ideology or another conservative group.

pix jet]

According to a 2020 article published in the Washington Post, Mellon writes that Black people have become "even more belligerent and unwilling to pitch in to improve their own situations" after social safety net programs were expanded in the 1960s and 1970s. Mellon writes that they are now "slaves of a new Master, Uncle Sam."

Mellon also derided programs intended to lift people out of poverty as "Slavery Redux." Mellon claimed that in exchange for "delivering their votes in the Federal Elections, they are awarded with yet more and more freebies: food stamps, cell phones, WIC payments, Obamacare, and on, and on, and on." According to Mellon, who inherited his fortune, "[t]he largess is funded by the hardworking folks, fewer and fewer in number, who are too honest or too proud to allow themselves to sink into this morass.”

Mellon also blasted universities for offering college students the opportunity to learn about the history of Black people, women, and the LGBTQ community. "Black Studies, Women’s Studies, LGBT Studies, they have all cluttered Higher Education with a mishmash of meaningless tripe designed to brainwash gullible young adults into going along with the Dependency Syndrome," Mellon wrote.

In response to scrutiny of the book, Mellon stood firm. "I said everything I wanted to say,” Mellon told Bloomberg. “I don’t have any regrets.”

But now, Mellon is trying to rewrite history. The website Mellon used to sell the book, timsstory.com, has been taken offline. The book doesn't appear to be available to purchase anywhere. Instead, later this month, Mellon is publishing a new autobiography with the same title. This time, the cover includes a gushing blurb from Kennedy.

[tabl pix book blurb maverick genius]

Mellon's new book is being published by Skyhorse Publishing, which is run by Tony Lyons. He also serves as the co-chair of American Values 2024, Kennedy’s Super PAC. Skyhorse Publishing has published Kennedy’s books about vaccine conspiracy theories and the works of other conspiracy theorists, including Alex Jones. According to the promotional material, Mellon's new book reveals "a life not merely lived on inherited wealth but on conviction, leadership, and the audacity to defy convention."

Mellon's connection to Project 2025

In addition to his donations to Super PACs supporting the campaigns of Trump and Kennedy, Mellon donated $4 million to Sentinel Action Fund, a Super PAC created by Heritage Action, a subsidiary of the Heritage Foundation. (Contributions directly to Heritage Action or the Heritage Foundation are not disclosed.)

The Heritage Foundation is the leading organization behind Project 2025, a blueprint for a second Trump administration.

Project 2025 is a 920-page document that lays out a radically different future for the United States. The document details a "Christian nationalist vision of the United States, one in which married heterosexuality is the only valid form of sexual expression and identity; all pregnancies would be carried to term, even if that requires coercion or death; and transgender and gender-nonconforming people do not exist."

In addition to the detailed policy guide, the Heritage Foundation is vetting thousands of "conservative warriors" who can come to Washington, D.C., to implement the plan.

Why is Mellon supporting Kennedy?

Mellon's $25 million donation to Kennedy's Super PAC is keeping his cash-strapped campaign afloat. But why is Mellon supporting Kennedy?

In 2023, before Kennedy dropped out of the Democratic primary, Mellon expressed his support for Kennedy in a statement released by the super PAC. “The fact that Kennedy gets so much bipartisan support tells me two things: that he’s the one candidate who can unite the country and root out corruption and that he’s the one Democrat who can win in the general election.” Mellon “has also been a ‘supporter’” of Kennedy’s anti-vaccine non-profit Children’s Health Defense, Mark Gorton, co-founder of the American Values super PAC, told NOTUS.

Mellon, however, also has a history of supporting candidates that he thinks will damage the Democratic Party.

In 2018, for example, Mellon donated $2,700 to Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). In an interview with Bloomberg, Mellon explained the donation was because “he thought that, if elected, her outspokenness would cause headaches for Democrats.” Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign tried to refund the donation, but Mellon said he would “neither cash nor deposit the check but rather, frame it.” The Wall Street Journal reported that Mellon also donated $5,800 to Senator Joe Manchin (I-WV) in 2021 and 2022 and $2,900 to Senator Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) in 2022, two politicians who have a history of obstructing Democratic policy priorities.

Mellon's other massive donation

In 2021, Mellon donated $53 million to Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s (R) fundraising campaign to build a border wall. According to the Texas Tribune, Mellon’s donation “contributed nearly 98% of the fund’s total donations.”

In June 2021, Abbott announced a plan to build a state-funded wall on the Mexico border. Abbott “expected people to both donate their own money and volunteer their land for the barrier.” The plan is part of Abbott’s Operation Lone Star, which seeks to subvert federal immigration policy. In addition to the barriers, some of which are topped with razor wire, Texas has authorized “Texas National Guard soldiers and state troopers to arrest” undocumented migrants. This has created safety concerns and “essentially criminalizes seeking asylum,” which migrants have the right to pursue under federal law.

The Wall Street Journal reported that “people familiar with [Mellon’s] thinking” said that “[o]ne of the main issues driving Mellon’s giving is immigration.” In 2010, Mellon gave $1.5 million “to help the state of Arizona defend a controversial law that required police to determine the immigration status of people suspected of living in the U.S. illegally, which critics said could lead to racial profiling.”

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an 2 24

if Donald Trump takes power this November, he’ll owe his victory in no small part to one of the richest Americans alive — in 1920.

I’m talking about the Pittsburgh banker and industrialist Andrew Mellon, who as treasury secretary for Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover, changed the U.S. tax code in ways that allowed — more than a century later — part of his personal fortune to bankroll Donald Trump’s reelection campaign.

Andrew’s grandson, Timothy has so far contributed $20 million to Trump’s MAGA Inc. super PAC.

Since 2018, Timothy Mellon has also donated $30 million to the House Republicans’ super PAC for electing Republicans to the House. In 2020, he gave $30 million to the Senate Republicans’ super PAC.

Timothy has so far donated $15 million to Robert F. Kennedy Junior’s super PAC — showing just how important RFK Junior’s candidacy is to Trump’s strategy of siphoning votes from Biden.

Timothy is also responsible for nearly all the donations to Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s $54 million border wall fund.

Forbes estimated Timothy Mellon to be worth almost $1 billion in 2014, and in 2024, the magazine estimated the Mellon family was worth $14.1 billion.

But Timothy didn’t earn his money. He inherited it. The money trail spans four generations.

It began with Thomas Mellon, who started his own bank in Pittsburgh in 1869. Thomas’s bank attracted the deposits of robber barons like Andrew Carnegie and Henry Frick, and within a relatively short time it became the largest private bank between New York and Chicago.

Steeped in social Darwinism, Thomas Mellon promoted suicide as decency: If criminals were sufficiently public‐spirited, he argued, they would “manfully rid the world of their presence, and society of the expense and trouble of their trial and punishment.”

Thomas viewed the acquisition of wealth as a mark of merit and poverty as a failure of character. Thomas wrote in his autobiography that voting rights were responsible for many of society’s ills, driving higher spending, borrowing, and taxes.

After the Civil War, Thomas toured the South, where he was disgusted to see Louisiana’s Legislature captured by what he called “stolid, stupid, rude and awkward field negroes, lolling on the seats or crunching peanuts.” He wrote that these representatives were puppets of white Northerners who were using “corrupt schemes to rob the property owners and taxpayers.”

Thomas brought his two sons, Andrew and Richard B., into the banking business. Then, in partnership with Henry Frick, Andrew and Richard organized a new bank — the Union Trust Company — which became even more successful.

Andrew knew how to use his wealth for political advantage. He supplied such a large portion of the campaign dollars that helped Warren G. Harding become president in 1920 that Harding made Andrew secretary of the treasury.

Andrew held the position for the next 11 years, from 1921 to 1932 — longer than anyone in the history of the country (or as Nebraska Senator George Norris once acidly put it, “three presidents served under Mellon”).

Andrew was intent on cutting taxes. He was an early prophet of “trickle-down” economics, arguing that lowering taxes on companies and the wealthiest would spur investment that would lead to prosperity for the nation. “Taxes which are inherently excessive are not paid,” Andrew wrote in a book on taxation published while he was treasury secretary.

Andrew especially hated the estate tax. “The social necessity for breaking up large fortunes in this country does not exist,” he wrote.

Andrew ended up cutting the estate tax by half. He also whittled down the top income tax rate from 73 percent to 25 percent and eliminated the gift tax.

These changes enabled Andrew to shift much of his personal fortune — estimated to be $600 million, or about $9 billion today — tax-free to his heirs.

Andrew was still treasury secretary when the Great Depression hit, ending his public career in disgrace.

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal turned Andrew’s tax policies upside down. Under FDR, whom one biographer hailed as a “traitor to his class,” the top income tax rates went as high as 94 percent to raise funds for World War II. The tax on the largest estates rose to 77 percent.

But the Mellon fortune survived notwithstanding. In 1957, Fortune magazine ranked four Mellon heirs among America’s eight richest individuals.

Paul Mellon, Timothy’s father and the scion of Mellon Generation #3, is best remembered as a philanthropist and breeder of horses. As he wrote in his autobiography, aptly titled Reflections in a Silver Spoon, “I have been an amateur in every phase of my life … and I can honestly say that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed all the roles I have played.”

Thence came Timothy Mellon — the fourth generation, and the Trump reelection campaign’s top benefactor.

Like his forebears (and like Donald Trump), Timothy Mellon rages against only handouts that go to those born without silver spoons. In his self-published 2015 autobiography, Timothy argued that expanded social programs have only made Black people “even more belligerent.”

“For delivering their votes in the Federal Elections, they are awarded with yet more and more freebies: food stamps, cell phones, WIC payments, Obamacare, and on, and on, and on. The largess is funded by the hardworking folks, fewer and fewer in number, who are too honest or too proud to allow themselves to sink into this morass.”

Timothy Mellon — and the tens of millions he is shelling out to Trump, RFK Junior, and Republican candidates for the Senate and House — is the product of a tax system pioneered by his grandfather that allows the perpetuation of dynastic wealth and the maintenance of its political power.

The Mellon money trail exemplifies the perils of dynastic wealth — and why we need a wealth tax in America. Or the capital gains tax must be applied to the appreciated value of assets held during someone’s life, before they die and hand them off to their heirs at current market value.

When he was a Virginia legislator, Thomas Jefferson sought legal ways to prevent the perpetuation of great fortunes, fearing the rise of an American “aristocracy of wealth,” which, Jefferson believed, posed more “harm and danger, than benefit, to society.”

The wealth and power extending from Thomas to Andrew to Paul to Timothy Mellon proves Jefferson exactly right.

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Lindsey Graham among GOP candidates who took money from alleged racist

Roger Sollenberger

A number of Republican candidates for Senate and Congress accepted recent campaign donations from Timothy Mellon, a GOP megadonor and heir to the Mellon family fortune, who used derogatory stereotypes…

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