Many New Year's traditions are meant to bring prosperity in the months to come.

But America's relationship to wealth is, in a word, complicated.

Last year saw the return of a billionaire to the Oval Office, and President Trump stacked his

inner circle with other wealthy individuals, including former advisor Elon Musk, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik, and

Education Secretary Linda McMahon, all successful business people who are billionaires.

This solidified seats at the table for the ultra-rich after a presidential campaign season

that saw the wealthiest 100 Americans spend over a billion dollars on federal elections,

according to a Washington Post analysis.

But as billionaire's influence has grown, so too has Americans skepticism.

In a recent Washington Post-Ipsos poll, 58 percent of respondents said billionaires spending on campaigns is bad for the country. As we begin this

midterm election season, we take stock of the intersection of money and politics with Washington

Post reporter Beth Reinhart. Beth, you cite some staggering statistics in your research

here in reporting. In 2004, you found the richest Americans,

the hundred Americans who were the richest, spent $46 million on elections. That was a peak at

that time. But by 2024, that had ballooned to over $1 billion. Now it accounts for one in every

$13 spent in the election. How did we get

here? Yeah, it was a pretty staggering increase. There's a few reasons that we're seeing this

outpouring from the billionaire class. One obvious reason is the billionaire class has grown.

Forbes counted 902 billionaires in the United States. This past year, that's more than in any other country in the world. And that's twice as many

as there was just a little more than a decade ago. So the billionaire class is much bigger and it's much wealthier. If you're

a billionaire spending literally hundreds of millions of dollars on an election is really just

change in your pocket. They basically can spend what too many of us just seems like unlimited

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