Sen. Tillis has taken $351,000 from Pharma corporate PACs and voted to give $76 billion in tax cuts to Big Pharma
An Axios report shows that Big Pharma is using that money towards stock buybacks
In his vote for the 2017 GOP tax bill, Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) gave $76 billion in tax cuts to Big Pharma. According to a new Axios report, instead of using those savings to lower prescription drug costs, Big Pharma has used that money towards stock buybacks for investors and executives. Over the course of his career, Tillis has taken $351,000 from Big Pharma corporate PACs, including $149,000 from the PACs of the 12 largest pharmaceutical companies covered in the analysis.
The report shows that in 2018, the first year the GOP tax bill went into effect, Big Pharma spent $69 billion on stock buybacks for investors and executives. Just one year prior, Big Pharma spent $25.5 billion on stock buybacks. The jump from 2017 to 2018 represents a 171 percent increase in just one year. Over that same time period, Big Pharma increased its research and development spending by only 12 percent.
“Instead of heeding the warning calls about the tax bill hurting North Carolinians, Senator Thom Tillis spewed Big Pharma’s talking points and secured $76 billion for the industry,” said Tiffany Muller, president of End Citizens United. “While North Carolinians are making tough decisions about whether to put food on the table or buy their prescription medications, Tillis fought vigorously in support of this disastrous tax law. Big Pharma’s greed knows no bounds and Thom Tillis is complicit in this unethical scheme of boosting profits while charging Americans exorbitant prices for life-saving medications.”
From 1998-2017, the drug industry spent $3.7 billion on lobbying, which is $1 billion more than any other industry. Since 1990, Big Pharma has made over $210 million in campaign contributions alone. In 2018, the pharmaceutical industry hired nearly 1,470 lobbyists, nearly three lobbyists for every single member of Congress. As their lobbying efforts grew, Big Pharma continued to raise prescription drug prices, increasing the price of 3,400 prescription drugs in the first half of 2019 at an average rate of five times that of inflation.
In 2019, Sen. Thom Tillis was named to ECU’s Big Money 20, the group’s list of most corrupt politicians. For more on Tillis and additional background on the Big Money 20, click here.
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