Corporate Power and Political Influence: How Big Business Benefits from a Divided Government

Some people say our government is “broken.” Meg’s here with a spicier take: it’s working exactly as designed—for corporate interests, not for you.

In this episode of Disrupt Your Money, she goes full rage-with-receipts on dysfunctional government: the disinformation machine, the unqualified agency heads, the lobbying circus, and the “greatest hits” of corporate greed that turned our laws into a playground for billionaires. This isn’t chaos by accident—it’s a well-oiled profit engine.

Then she brings it all the way back to your life and business: what this rigged system means for small business owners (especially marginalized founders), why you’re overtaxed and underprotected while corporations skate, and what you can actually do about it—without burning yourself out trying to fix everything alone.

⏱️ In This Episode:

00:00 Introduction

01:14 “Broken” Government as Corporate Christmas

01:40 What Dysfunctional Government Really Is

02:20 Disinformation 101

02:53 Inflation, Groceries & Money Lies

03:38 Trade, Tariffs & Spin

04:21 Big Oil’s Climate Disinformation

07:44 Lobbying as a Profitable Investment

09:04 Greatest Hits of Corporate Greed

11:46 Deregulation on Steroids

14:21 What This Means for Small Business Owners

15:31 Six Ways to Fight Back

17:23 Final Call to Action

🔗 Mentioned in This Episode:

 👉 Public Citizen – tracking corporate power & government accountability → https://www.citizen.org
👉 OpenSecrets – following money in politics & lobbying data → https://www.opensecrets.org
👉 Institute for Local Self-Reliance – building local economic power → https://ilsr.org

💬 Connect with Us:

🌐 Website → https://equitablemoneyproject.com

 📸 Instagram → https://instagram.com/equitablemoneyproject

🎧 Podcast → https://equitablemoneyproject.com/podcast

🚀 Your Next Step:

 Ready to make your money match your values and push back on systems designed to exhaust us? Download our free Wealth is Resistance Action Kit → https://equitablemoneyproject.com/kit

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Well, hey there, I'm Meg Wheeler, CPA, entrepreneur, and political activist, and you're listening to Disrupt Your Money, the podcast that's pursuing liberation through financial education. Let's face it, our economy and financial institutions weren't built to support the majority of us. So if we're going to achieve financial equity and justice for all, we've got to build our own. So let's do it, my friends. Let's get ready to disrupt your money. Now, today's episode, it is juicy. It's also really infuriating. And dare I say, it's probably going to have you shaking your fist at the sky in existential rage. So today we're talking about how dysfunctional government is the best Christmas gift that corporate interest could ever receive, and how those big businesses, not yours, are benefiting from it. Or, as I like to call it, why America feels like a reality show where the rich write the rules and the rest of us pay the bill. Let's dive in. All right, so first things first, what the heck do I mean when I say dysfunctional government? So let's start with that basic question. What is a dysfunctional government? Well, here's what it's not. It's not a system that runs with care, integrity, and equity. What it is? It's a hot, bubbling cauldron of disinformation, self-dealing, and incompetent leadership where political chaos chaos isn't a glitch, it's a feature. Now, I want you to imagine a workplace where the manager doesn't understand the job, the assistant spreads lies about HR, and the board only approves projects that enrich themselves. And that's not just an episode of the office, that is the United States federal government on a Tuesday. And if that sounds dramatic, well, let me walk you through the receipts. So let's start by talking about disinformation, which is the smokescreen of corporate greed. Basically, misinformation's more sinister, better funded cousined. Now, disinformation isn't just someone being wrong online. It is a coordinated, well-oiled machine designed to confuse the public, divide communities, and protect corporate profits. And the current presidential administration, well, they're patient zero, whether directly or by sitting on their hands while it spreads like wildfire. So just for shits and giggles, I'm gonna read to you a handful of the things that the current presidential administration has lied about in just the first 100 days. And by the way, shout out to Daniel Dale over at CNN who populated this list. The full list will be available inside of our show notes. So let's start with inflation, because that's why the current administration was elected in the first place, right? Well, there are lots of lies around this one. Now, back in April, the current administration falsely claimed that grocery prices were, quote, way down, end quote. Not quite. In fact, grocery prices had actually increased since the current president took office, and the jump from February to March was the biggest one-month increase since October 2022. All right, so let's talk about trade. Remember how the current administration woke up one morning and decided to start taxing, well, everyone, including the penguins on the otherwise uninhabited herd in McDonald Islands? Yeah, well, the penguin thing was not a lie, but what they said about the trade deals they made was during an interview in which the interviewer noted that no trade deals had been made, the current president said, quote, I've made 200 deals, end quote. And then when pressed on the fact that in reality he had made no deals, he said, quote, the deal is a deal that I choose. We are a department store and we set the price, end quote. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's not how trade deals work. Now let's turn to a lie that's even more ominous. For literal decades, Big Oil has spent billions of dollars convincing us that the climate crisis is just a theory, that plastic straws are the real problem, and that switching to paper bags will reverse global warming. Never mind that 71% of global emissions come from just 100 companies. But that's not the party line that we are sold. All right, so it's not a surprise that there is so much disinformation out there, but let's actually talk about where a lot of this disinformation is coming from in a segment that I like to call Meet Your Unqualified Government Officials. Because let's be honest, we gotta talk about the qualifications, or in this case, the lack thereof. Now, do you remember that time that the Department of Education was led by someone who had never worked in public education? Or when the Environmental Protection Agency was chaired by a fossil fuel lobbyist. Yeah, that's not satire. That is actually real life today. Under the recent administration, we have seen federal judges confirmed without trial experience. We've had heads of departments who did not believe in the mission of their departments. Like when Ajeet Pai, the former Verizon lawyer, chaired the FCC and then pushed to repeal net neutrality, something the literal internet begged not to happen. Who benefited from this stuff? Well, not small online entrepreneurs trying to compete. Nope. Comcast, ATT, Verizon, you know, the folks who make your internet slow unless you pay for priority. And let's talk about just some of the other super awesome hires that the current president has made this year. The Department of Education is run by someone whose sole purpose is to get rid of the department. The Secretary of Defense apparently needs his wife in on his confidential work communications just to do his job, and, oh by the way, leaked confidential and possibly classified information on his yo bros group text. The Secretary of State, arguably the only one with actual federal government experience as a former senator, apparently, or so he claims, had no idea that the president was selling access to himself to foreign billionaires, essentially giving them an end run around the laws that are literally in place to stop this very thing. Let's also talk about Department of Homeland Security Director Christy Gnome, who doesn't understand what habeas corpus is. And by the way, if you don't either, that's cool because you are not the literal head of the Department of Homeland Security. But also, I highly recommend you learn what habeas corpus is. And of course, this conversation would not be complete without talking about the president's former little buddy, the so-called founder who didn't actually found the company of Tesla, who has managed to bulldoze and bungle so many things that it'll likely take generations to repair before saying, peace out, and heading back to run his so-called company. Now, it's not that these folks are unqualified by accident. They are perfectly qualified to do exactly what corporations want: weaken regulations, sow confusion, and make the government look like the problem. And that leads us to lobbying. Corporate lobbying is the most profitable investment in America. In 2024 alone, more than $4 billion was spent on federal lobbying in the US. And that's right, I said billion with a B. Now let me give it to you straight. No stock, no bond, no real estate portfolio has a return on investment like political lobbying. Well, there is no clear figure. Experts estimate that for every $1 spent on lobbying by just the pharmaceutical industry alone, they get hundreds of dollars in tax breaks and protected pricing. And how did this happen? Well, through lobbying, through political donations, through revolving doors between industry and government, through the complete and utter abdication of leadership from elected officials who are more worried about campaign checks than they are about coastline flooding. Now, if that sounds like a great deal, well, congratulations, you're probably a Fortune 100 CEO. But for the rest of us, we're over here paying $700 for epi pens and praying our insurance covers it. This is no accident. It is by design and it's profitable as hell. But let's be specific. I want to talk about some of the bought and paid for laws, aka the greatest hits of corporate greed. Let's start with the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2005, 2005. Now, this act was lobbied for by credit card companies. This law made it harder for individuals, particularly low-income Americans, to file for bankruptcy. Meanwhile, corporations like Hertz, Purdue Pharma, and even the NRA, they file bankruptcy to dodge lawsuits and reorganize their debt like they're Marie Kondoing their finances. Is this fair? Not even a little. And the cost for these credit card companies to lobby for this act? Oh, just a measly $250 to $300 million from the corporations that ended up saving them billions of dollars. Now, the second is the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003. This act literally bans Medicare from negotiating lower prices on prescription drugs. It's like going to Costco and being told that you can't actually buy in bulk. And who wrote this? Well, pharma lobbyists. In 2003, pharmaceutical companies and special interest groups spent over $140 million, which is about $250 million in today's money, with over $30 million of that just spent on this Medicare bill alone. And who voted for this bill? Well, many lawmakers who were later hired as pharma consultants. In fact, one lawmaker in particular, Representative Billy Tovin from Louisiana, helped write the bill and then resigned from Congress and took a $2 million a year job as a pharma lobbyist within months. I wish I were kidding about this stuff. All right, let's move on to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. Now, this was marketed as good for small business, but y'all, it was a Trojan horse. Basically a golden toilet wrapped up in middle class gift paper, and they didn't even hide it that well. Corporate tax rates were slashed permanently. For regular folks, temporary benefits that vanished by 2027. Now, the one big beautiful bill, otherwise known as the bullshit bill, that just passed, did extend some of these. But for many folks, they saw their tax benefits dwindle after just a few years of this bill passing. Well, the corporations enjoyed their benefits ongoing. And by the way, some of the biggest companies in America paid $0 in federal taxes the year after this bill was passed. Amazon, $0. Netflix, $0. Meanwhile, you, you probably got audited because you dared to deduct your home office. Now, lobbyists aren't just buying their way into Congress. They are also doing something called executive orders. And executive orders are essentially a way to bypass the will of the people. Now, these little beauties allow the president to skip the whole messy Congress thing and make sweeping policy with the stroke of a pen. And sometimes this is useful in situations where action needs to be taken really quickly and Congress can't get their act together quickly enough. Sometimes we've seen it be beneficial with things like ending discriminatory military policies, things that need to happen that Congress just can't come to terms on. But more often these executive orders are basically used to have corporate Christmas. Let's take the executive order that was signed earlier this year that fast-tracked permits for fossil fuel pipelines. This order rolled back environmental reviews, it overrode tribal consultation requirements, and it ignored local opposition. Who do you think the winners were of this? You got it right, energy corporations with histories of spill and violations. The losers? Indigenous communities, local farmers, environmentalists, and yeah, small businesses trying to invest in sustainable solutions. Another gem, Executive Order 13771, otherwise known as the two-for-one rule, which means that for every new regulation on businesses that's issued, the government has to eliminate two existing regulations. Because apparently the president's been reading a lot of how to declutter your house books. I love that there is literally no consideration as to whether or not the regulations that are being slashed are, I don't know, just going out on a limb here, maybe keeping us safe. Talk about an arbitrary and incredibly damaging order by the president. Now, here's the kicker. This dysfunction that we're talking about, this chaos, this is not a side effect. It is the literal point. When government is too weak to regulate, too confused to coordinate, and too underfunded to enforce the rules, that's when corporations win. Because when the watchdog is asleep, or worse, bought off, there is no one stopping you from doing whatever you want. That's why billionaires push disinformation about taxes. It's why fossil fuel companies write the rules about emissions. And it's why Facebook funds research that says it's not addictive, even while their internal memos say otherwise. So the big question here is okay, what does this actually mean for you, the small business owner, the creator, the person hustling to make something meaningful in an economy that feels and in many ways is stacked against you? Maybe you're sitting there thinking, well, less regulation is good for me, right? Since I'm a business. Well, think again. Because government dysfunction and corporate rule means that you're taxed more, regulated more, and supported less than the corporate giants. It also means that your voice is drowned out by lobbyists that have nine-figure budgets. And it means that your customers are misinformed, they're overwhelmed, and they're increasingly radicalized by political echo chambers that benefit the powerful. And last but not least, you're competing against monopolies who undercut your prices because they do not have to play fair. And if you're a marginalized business owner, if you're black, you're queer, you're disabled, you're an immigrant, multiply that by 10,000. You are the innovator. You are the job creator. You are the literal backbone of the local economy. And yet you're being asked to build a just business on a battlefield designed for your failure. Okay, so what can we do about it? Well, first, let's take a deep breath. Because rage is useful, but so is action. Here are some places to start. First, vote local and vote often. National elections are very sexy, but local elections are the ones that decide zoning, procurement, and small business funding. Know your city council, know your school board, show up, pay attention, and make your voice count. Second, organize with other business owners. Collective power matters. Start or join a coalition of values-aligned entrepreneurs, build group visibility, share resources, and amplify advocacy. Third, support the watchdogs. There are groups out there like Public Citizen, Open Secrets, and the Institute for Local Self-Reliance that are tracking all of this information and disinformation. Share their work and fund their work if you can. Four, call out the lies. Disinformation only works when we do not challenge it. So speak up, educate your audience, use your platform, whether you've got 100 followers or a hundred thousand. Five, use your business to model justice. Hire equitably, price fairly, be transparent, donate when you can. Offer sliding scales. Share your journey openly. This isn't charity, it's leadership. And six, demand change. Speak out against Citizens United, which allows big corporate money to funnel into political campaigns. Call your representatives and demand that they vote against unqualified, self-serving appointees and that they fight for and support bills that reduce lobbying influence and put limits on what Congress people can earn and do while both in office and after they leave. But here is the thing: systems change when people disrupt them. Not when billionaires build more apps, not when corporations write more loopholes, but when people like you and like me, people with courage, with vision, with heart, stand up and say no more. Your business, it is a seed of disruption. Your money is a tool of justice. Use it, grow it, and together, let's build something better. If this episode fired you up, or even just made you nod a few too many times, please rate, review, and share it with someone who needs to hear it. Disrupt your money is more than a podcast, it's a movement, and we need you in it. Stay brave, stay bold, and as always, my friends, stay money powered.