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    The Climate Fight Will Be Won in the Appliance Aisle

    More than a year after its passage, much about President Biden’s climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act, is working.America is putting in more solar panels than ever before, with installations expected to be up 52 percent compared with last year. The law has helped lock in America’s transition to electric vehicles. Companies have announced more than $60 billion in E.V. manufacturing investments since the I.R.A. passed, and Hyundai is rushing to finish its new E.V. factory in Georgia because the law’s incentives are so good. Across the country, investment in all forms of clean-energy manufacturing has ramped up, with spending this spring five times the level of two years ago, according to a new tracker from M.I.T. and the Rhodium Group, a research firm.The law is supposed to do more than transform the economy, though. It’s also supposed to change how and even where Americans live. The I.R.A. contains nearly $9 billion in rebates meant to help people upgrade and decarbonize their homes — for example, install an induction stove, a heat pump or a new electrical or insulation system. Since the climate law passed last year, Mr. Biden and Democrats in Congress have hyped the savings on energy that these policies will bring to consumers; that is, after all, the inflation that the law is meant to be reducing.But I have grown worried about these efforts — and about the next phase of the I.R.A.’s implementation more broadly. The building sector accounts for about 13 percent of America’s climate pollution, so the success of these programs is essential to the country’s decarbonization efforts. Yet more important, the execution of these programs poses a political risk for the Biden administration. These rebate and tax credit programs are some of the law’s most visible provisions. Other than the law’s electric vehicle subsidies, these home-focused policies will be most Americans’ best opportunity to get I.R.A. money in their pockets.If the programs fail, they could seriously mar the I.R.A.’s public image. And right now, they are faltering.Perhaps the biggest problem is inherent to their design. The most successful federal programs are simple, straightforward and easy to use. Think of the U.S. Postal Service sending free at-home Covid tests to all Americans or the relative ease of signing up for and receiving Social Security benefits. These new home-upgrade programs, meanwhile, seem likely to be especially persnickety, complicated and onerous for many Americans.That’s because, first, there are a lot of programs in play. Although the I.R.A. streamlined some of the most important existing climate tax credits (for example, for greening the grid), it included four home-focused programs. Two of these programs are tax credits meant to give Americans a tax discount when they install a new rooftop solar system, a geothermal-powered heater, a heat pump or another technology that reduces demand for carbon-emitting fossil fuels. Unlike other tax credits in the law, these programs have no income cap, so they can be used by wealthy Americans who can presumably afford to pay upfront to install residential equipment like a water heater. But like other new tax credits in the law, they require Americans to have some federal tax liability in the first place. If you owe nothing on your taxes, then you can’t get a discount.These credits are likely to be generous in aggregate, but in some cases they will be too small to spur a serious change of behavior. Installing a whole-home heat-pump system, for instance, can cost tens of thousands of dollars, but the I.R.A.’s new tax credit will cover only $2,000 of that in one calendar year.That’s when another set of programs is supposed to come in. The I.R.A. introduced a pair of rebate programs meant to help working- and middle-class Americans afford to upgrade appliances and other features of their homes. These two programs, known as HOMES and HEEHRA, are important. When it’s finally put in place, HEEHRA will lower the cost of heat pumps and other climate-friendly appliances at the point of sale, making them more affordable to consumers, including those who are not even aware of the policy. More than perhaps any other programs in the law, these rebates are meant to allow low-income Americans to reduce their monthly energy costs. And because they involve direct cash grants, using the rebates will not require oweing any taxes to the federal government. That is huge for retirees and Social Security recipients, many of whom have no earned income and little to no federal tax liability.Regardless of how consumers are reimbursed, the programs are exceedingly — perhaps even fatally — complicated. The reason they have yet to take effect is that although these programs will be overseen by the Department of Energy, they will be administered separately by each state’s energy office. The department is still finalizing the last few rules that will govern how these programs work. When it finishes that process, then states will apply for their share of the money. Only then — after states receive their funding and set up their programs — will they be able to start disbursing it to their residents.So far, very few state offices have received any funds from the programs — not even the preliminary funds meant to help them hire more staff members and manage administration costs. This could directly hurt the programs’ chances of success in the next year. State energy offices employ anywhere from a handful of people to more than 100, and they have now been tasked with overseeing complicated, high-stakes federal programs.The experts and business leaders I’ve talked to think that these problems will push any serious efforts to carry out the programs well into next year. Montana has said that it doesn’t expect to make rebates available until the first half of 2024. Georgia’s energy office recently estimated that rebates would become available by Sept. 30, 2024, at the latest — barely a month before the presidential election.Even then, major questions remain about how the programs will work. Democratic lawmakers have called on the Energy Department to consider allowing the rebates to be used retroactively — meaning that someone who bought, say, a heat pump in late 2022 could get free money for it under the law. But that would sharply increase the program’s complexity, and it would more quickly deplete the limited funds allocated to the rebates. The programs draw from fixed pools of funding — about $250 million per state — and when that money runs out at the state level, the rebates will lapse in most cases.This is not the only place where the I.R.A.’s implementation is mired in confusion. The initial rules of the home energy rebates have left state officials unsure of whether they can use someone’s eligibility for other social welfare programs, such as food stamps, to gauge whether they qualify for a rebate. (The Energy Department has published guidelines about this, but they are not comprehensive.) That may force states to set up expensive processes that will duplicate work that’s already been done and make it even more burdensome for people to use these programs. It’s also unclear whether households can use several Energy Department programs at once — such as the new HOMES rebates and the longstanding weatherization-assistance program — to reduce the cost of a major project.Unless the Biden administration acts now, these consumer-facing programs could be a big mess by next fall. They will have confusing criteria, work differently in each state and may require applicants to go through time-sucking paperwork before receiving any funds. They will not showcase the nimble, modern government, fighting for working people, that Mr. Biden hopes to sell to voters.The I.R.A. is going to change people’s lives — I have little doubt of that. But only eventually. And for the next year, many of the law’s benefits for average Americans will remain largely theoretical. The M.I.T. and Rhodium tracker says that of the $137 billion in announced clean-energy investment, only $37 billion — just 27 percent — has started to flow. There is a growing risk that as the presidential election arrives, the law’s most world-changing programs to stimulate clean electricity and E.V.s will have yet to show their impact, and its smaller programs will be mired in public operation headaches.There is recent precedent for such a failure. Although most Americans now approve of the Affordable Care Act, the law was blamed for Democrats’ losses in the 2010 midterms, and it remained desperately unpopular for much of the following decade. Even when Donald Trump was elected, most independents still disapproved of the law and wanted to see it rolled back. Only in 2017, when Republicans repeatedly tried to repeal the law, did popular opinion swing in its favor. It has remained popular ever since.The I.R.A., like the Affordable Care Act, aims for a higher purpose than being politically popular. But the law’s survival depends on its — and Mr. Biden’s — ability to win a literal popularity contest next year. Mr. Trump and other Republicans are already cultivating a hatred of the clean-energy transition among voters; failing consumer-facing rebate programs would be a gift to them. And if Mr. Trump wins next year, his team will have plenty of opportunities to undermine the I.R.A.’s emission-cutting policies, even without repealing the whole law.The aspirations of 30 years of climate policies ride on the I.R.A. If this one law is successful, it will open up other ways of making policy for the environment and economy; if it fails, then lawmakers will shy away from tackling climate change for years. The law’s home-rebate programs will not be large enough to fully decarbonize America’s millions of buildings. But if they are successful, then they will allow the creation of future policy that is.The I.R.A., I believe, is still on track to be a success. But voters won’t see the new E.V. factories that it’s building or the sparkling new manufacturing hubs. They will see what’s at Home Depot or in the back of their contractor’s pickup truck. And if people have to fill out 20 pages of paperwork just to save less money on a heat pump than they initially hoped for, that’s what they’ll always remember about the I.R.A.The climate fight might be waged in the streets. But it will be won in the appliance aisle.Robinson Meyer is a contributing Opinion writer and the founding executive editor of Heatmap, a media company focused on climate change.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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    California Has Record Budget Surplus as Rich Taxpayers Prosper

    SACRAMENTO — Buoyed by the pandemic prosperity of its richest taxpayers, California expects a record $97.5 billion surplus, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Friday, as he proposed a $300.6 billion state budget that also was a historic mark.“No other state in American history has ever experienced a surplus as large as this,” Mr. Newsom said, outlining revisions to spending he first proposed in January for the 12 months starting in July.Once again, as California heads into a gubernatorial election, the massive surplus allows Mr. Newsom to sprinkle cash across the state. Among the governor’s proposals: rebates for nearly all Californians to offset the effects of inflation, which is expected to exceed 7 percent in the state next year; retention bonuses of up to $1,500 for health care workers; expanded health care, in particular for women seeking abortions; three months of free public transit; and record per-pupil school funding. California also had a substantial surplus last year as the governor fended off a Republican-led recall.Mr. Newsom warned, however, that state budget planners have been “deeply mindful” of the potential for an economic downturn. California’s progressive tax system is famously volatile because of its reliance on the taxation of capital gains on investment income.“What more caution do we need in terms of evidence than the last two weeks?” the governor asked. The S&P 500, the benchmark U.S. stock index, has been nearing a drop of 20 percent since January, a threshold known as a bear market. Some other measures, including the Nasdaq composite, which is weighted heavily toward tech stocks, have already passed that marker.A little more than half of the surplus would go to an assortment of budgetary reserves and debt repayments, with almost all of the additional spending devoted to one-time outlays under the governor’s plan, which still needs to be approved by lawmakers.Legislative leaders have generally supported the notion of inflation relief, although the method remains a matter for negotiations. Some lawmakers are pushing for income-based cash rebates, while the governor is proposing to tie the relief to vehicle ownership because he says it would be faster and would cover residents whose federal aid is untaxed. Mr. Newsom’s fellow Democrats control the Legislature.“People are feeling deep stress, deep anxiety,” Mr. Newsom said. “You see that reflected in recent gas prices now beginning to go back up.”In a statement, the president pro tempore of the State Senate, Toni G. Atkins, and the chair of the committee that oversees budgeting in the chamber, Senator Nancy Skinner, noted that the plan for abortion funding, in particular, was in line with Democrats’ legislative agenda and called the governor’s proposals “encouraging.” More

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    States Turn to Tax Cuts as Inflation Stays Hot

    WASHINGTON — In Kansas, the Democratic governor has been pushing to slash the state’s grocery sales tax. Last month, New Mexico lawmakers provided $1,000 tax rebates to households hobbled by high gas prices. Legislatures in Iowa, Indiana and Idaho have all cut state income taxes this year.A combination of flush state budget coffers and rapid inflation has lawmakers across the country looking for ways to ease the pain of rising prices, with nearly three dozen states enacting or considering some form of tax relief, according to the Tax Foundation, a right-leaning think tank.The efforts are blurring typical party lines when it comes to tax policy. In many cases, Democrats are joining Republicans in supporting permanently lower taxes or temporary cuts, including for high earners.But while the policies are aimed at helping Americans weather the fastest pace of inflation in 40 years, economists warn that, paradoxically, cutting taxes could exacerbate the very problem lawmakers are trying to address. By putting more money in people’s pockets, policymakers risk further stimulating already rampant consumer demand, pushing prices higher nationally.Jason Furman, an economist at Harvard University who was an economic adviser under the Obama administration, said that the United States economy was producing at full capacity right now and that any additional spending power would only drive up demand and prices. But when it comes to cutting taxes, he acknowledged, the incentives for states do not always appear to be aligned with what is best for the national economy.“I think all these tax cuts in states are adding to inflation,” Mr. Furman said. “The problem is, from any governor’s perspective, a lot of the inflation it is adding is nationwide and a lot of the benefits of the tax cuts are to the states.”States are awash in cash after a faster-than-expected economic rebound in 2021 and a $350 billion infusion of stimulus funds that Congress allocated to states and cities last year. While the Biden administration has restricted states from using relief money to directly subsidize tax cuts, many governments have been able to find budgetary workarounds to do just that without violating the rules.Last week, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida signed a $1.2 billion tax cut that was made possible by budget surpluses. The state’s coffers were bolstered by $8.8 billion in federal pandemic relief money. Mr. DeSantis, a Republican, hailed the tax cuts as the largest in the state’s history.“Florida’s economy has consistently outpaced the nation, but we are still fighting against inflationary policies imposed on us by the Biden administration,” he said.Adding to the urgency is the political calendar: Many governors and state legislators face elections in November, and voters have made clear they are concerned about rising prices for gas, food and rent.“It’s very difficult for policymakers to see the inflationary pressures that taxpayers are burdened by right now while sitting on significant cash reserves without some desire to return that,” said Jared Walczak, vice president of state projects with the Center for State Tax Policy at the Tax Foundation. “The challenge for policymakers is that simply cutting checks to taxpayers can feed the inflationary environment rather than offsetting it.”The tax cuts are coming in a variety of forms and sizes. According to the Tax Foundation, which has been tracking proposals this year, some would be phased in, some would be permanent and others would be temporary “holidays.”Next month, New York will suspend some of its state gas taxes through the end of the year, a move that Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, said would save families and businesses an estimated $585 million.In Pennsylvania, Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, has called for gradually lowering the state’s corporate tax rate to 5 percent from 10 percent — taking a decidedly different stance from many of his political peers in Congress, who have called for raising corporate taxes. Mr. Wolf said in April that the proposal was intended to make Pennsylvania more business friendly.States are acting on a fresh appetite for tax cuts as inflation is running at a 40-year high.OK McCausland for The New York TimesMr. Furman pointed to the budget surpluses as evidence that the $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package handed too much money to local governments. “The problem was there was just too much money for states and localities.”A new report from the Tax Policy Center, a left-leaning think tank, said total state revenues rose by about 17.6 percent last year. State rainy day funds — money that is set aside to cover unexpected costs — have reached “new record levels,” according to the National Association of State Budget Officers.Yet those rosy budget balances may not last if the economy slows, as expected. The Federal Reserve has begun raising interest rates in an attempt to cool economic growth, and there are growing concerns about the potential for another recession. Stocks fell for another session on Monday, with the S&P 500 down 3.2 percent, as investors fretted about a slowdown in global growth, high inflation and other economic woes.Cutting taxes too deeply now could put states on weaker financial footing.The Tax Policy Center said its state tax revenue forecasts for the rest of this year and next year were “alarmingly weak” as states enacted tax cuts and spending plans. Fitch, the credit rating agency, said recently that immediate and permanent tax cuts could be risky in light of evolving economic conditions.“Substantial tax policy changes can negatively affect revenues and lead to long-term structural budget challenges, especially when enacted all at once in an uncertain economic environment,” Fitch said.The state tax cuts are taking place as the Biden administration struggles to respond to rising prices. So far, the White House has resisted calls for a gas tax holiday, though Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said in April that President Biden was open to the idea. The administration has responded by primarily trying to ease supply chain logjams that have created shortages of goods and cracking down on price gouging, but taming inflation falls largely to the Fed.The White House declined to assess the merits of states’ cutting taxes but pointed to the administration’s measures to expand fuel supplies and proposals for strengthening supply chains and lowering health and child care costs as evidence that Mr. Biden was taking inflation seriously.“President Biden is taking aggressive action to lower costs for American families and address inflation,” Emilie Simons, a White House spokeswoman, said.The degree to which state tax relief fuels inflation depends in large part on how quickly the moves go into effect.Gov. Laura Kelly backed a bill last month that would phase out the 6.5 percent grocery sales tax in Kansas, lowering it next January and bringing it to zero by 2025. Republicans in the state pushed for the gradual reduction despite calls from Democrats to cut the tax to zero by July.Inflation F.A.Q.Card 1 of 6What is inflation? More

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    How Deceptive Campaign Fund-Raising Ensnares Older People

    Older Americans, a critical source of political donations, often fall victim to aggressive and misleading digital practices. A broad Times analysis points to the scope of the problem.William W. Vaughan Jr. was a senior atmospheric scientist at NASA during the space race and later an accomplished academic, but as with so many aging Americans, time and technology had sapped him of some of his savvy, especially online.Computers made him feel “like a duck out of water,” his son Steve Vaughan said. So when Steve was sorting through the elder Mr. Vaughan’s papers after his death at 90 in December, he was unsettled by what he found on his father’s final credit card bill.The first item was familiar: $11.82 at the local Chick-fil-A in Huntsville, Ala. But every other charge on the first page, and there were dozens of them, was to the firm that processes online Republican campaign contributions, WinRed. Over four months last year, Mr. Vaughan had made 400 donations totaling nearly $11,500 — to Donald J. Trump, Mitch McConnell, Tim Scott, Steve Scalise and many others.The sum was far beyond the realm of his financial ability, his son said, and sure enough, he soon discovered handwritten notes outlining what appeared to be his father’s call disputing the charges with his credit card company. He is still seething at the avalanche of charges and “what they did to a 90-year-old” just before his death.“If it happened to him,” he said, “I have to figure it happened to other people.”It has.Mr. Vaughan died in December at age 90.The dirty little secret of online political fund-raising is that the most aggressive and pernicious practices that campaigns use to raise money are especially likely to ensnare unsuspecting older people, according to interviews with digital strategists and an examination of federal donation and refund data.Older Americans are critical campaign contributors, both online and offline. More than half of all the online contributions processed by WinRed in the last cycle, 56 percent, came from people who listed their occupation as “retired,” federal records show.Digital operatives in both parties deploy an array of manipulative tactics that can deceive donors of all age groups: faux bill notices and official-looking correspondence; bogus offers to match donations and hidden links to unsubscribe; and prechecked boxes that automatically repeat donations, which are widely seen as the most egregious scheme.But some groups appear to specifically target older internet users, blasting out messages with subject lines like “Social Security” that have particular resonance for older people, and spending disproportionately on ads for an older audience. In many cases, the most unscrupulous tactics of direct mail have simply been rebooted for the digital age — with ruthless new precision.“Everybody knows what they’re doing: They’re scamming seniors to line their own pockets and to raise money for campaigns,” said Mike Nellis, a Democratic digital strategist who is critical of deceptive practices.“You are targeting people who are less savvy online, who are more likely to believe what’s put in front of them,” Mr. Nellis said, lamenting tactics that “erase people’s humanity.”It is impossible to tell just how many older Americans are deceived by such methods, because age is not reported on federal filings. One useful measuring stick, digital experts say, is the number of donations that are refunded — which often occurs when contributors feel unsatisfied or duped.The New York Times analyzed refund data from 2020, working with the political information firm Political Data Inc., which matched refunded donors to the voter rolls. The results provide a rare window into just how disproportionately old the universe of donors who receive refunds is.Donation refunds skewed heavily to older peopleRepublican campaigns issued refunds at far higher rates (7.4 percent of WinRed contributions) than Democratic ones (2.3 percent on ActBlue) in the 2020 election. But the age distribution for both parties among California refunds was very similar.

    Note: Donations without an age listed were excluded.Source: Federal Election Commission and Political Data, Inc.Taylor JohnstonThe findings, which looked at refunds in one large and diverse state, California, showed that the average age of donors who received refunds was almost 66 on WinRed and nearly 65 on ActBlue, the equivalent Democratic processing site.Even more revealing: More than four times as much money was refunded to donors who are 70 and older than to adults under the age of 50 — for both Republicans and Democrats.More than 65,000 unique donors, who were refunded a roughly $25 million combined last election, were matched by name and ZIP code in California. The ages of donors being refunded in both parties were very similar, even as Republican campaigns issued online refunds at more than triple the overall rate of Democrats, records show.A Times investigation earlier this year revealed how the Trump operation had made donations automatically recur weekly, and had obscured that fact with extraneous text, causing a multimillion-dollar cascade of refunds and a surge of fraud complaints.Multiple banking officials said the flood of complaints against Mr. Trump’s operation came heavily from older donors. One fraud investigator recalled the case of an 88-year-old who worried that her family would presume she was developing dementia because the repeat charges had blown past her credit card limit.Exploiting the diminishing capacity of older people for cash extends far beyond politics. There is an entire initiative at the Justice Department devoted to elder abuse, and the F.B.I.’s Internet Crime Complaint Center reported nearly $1 billion in losses for those 60 and older in 2020.Most political tactics are legal, though the Justice Department recently called out nonexistent promises to match donations as an example of “material misrepresentations.”“You leverage data, technology, emotion and digital tactics to take advantage of a population,” said Cyrus Krohn, who oversaw digital strategy at the Republican National Committee more than a decade ago and now regrets some of his earlier work. “It’s like a kid in a candy store.”A rally for former President Donald J. Trump at The Villages, a retirement community in Florida, in October.Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesWhy older people are ‘the perfect target’Daniel Marson, a clinical neuropsychologist who has studied financial decision-making among aging Americans, said older people face a double whammy online when combining their generational lack of familiarity with technology and age-related cognitive declines.The brain itself starts to shift with age, Dr. Marson and other neurological experts said. Processing typically begins to slow. Keeping track of multiple things is harder. Evaluating trustworthiness becomes more of a struggle.“They just don’t have the same digital literacy or capacity to engage in an internet world,” said Dr. Marson, the former director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Center at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.Certainly, millions of aging Americans are still adroit with technology and some don’t decline cognitively until a very advanced age.But even the kinds of silly deceptions that millennials and digital natives might roll their eyes at — like stress-inducing donation countdown clocks — can more easily distract or confuse many retirees who adopted computers later in life.Some campaigns use subject lines like “Final Notice #33716980” — which the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee recently deployed — that can make it appear as if actual bills are at risk of defaulting. Some use breathless exaggerations, like a recent text from the House Republican campaign arm, which warned it would “lose the House for good!” if everyone did not contribute $9 by midnight.A fund-raising email from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Personal information has been redacted.Many older people interpret personalized messages literally.Tatenda Musapatike, a Democratic digital strategist, recalled having to explain to some older family members that Joe Biden was not in fact the person sending them an email asking for money.“It’s not naïve or foolish,” she said. “It’s from people being less online.”The daughter of one 69-year-old donor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to safeguard her father’s wishes to remain private, described a call from her mother last year asking her to intervene in his excessive online contributions. “Mom came to me and said, ‘Dad donated $25,000,’” the woman said. Records show he made hundreds of donations via WinRed to a variety of Republican campaigns.“He’s taking what they say as truth,” she said, adding that he has begun exhibiting early symptoms of mental decline and insists he has not donated as much as he actually has.While she has unsubscribed him from as many email and text lists as she can, she remains worried. “I can’t watch him 24 hours a day,” she said.Text messages sent from the National Republican Congressional Committee urged people to donate with false deadlines and promises of matching contributions.David Laibson, a behavioral economics professor at Harvard who has studied the impact of aging on financial decision-making, said studies showed that half of people in their 80s or older have either some cognitive impairment short of dementia or actual dementia.“Who’s the perfect target?” he said. “They’re in their early 80s, they have a very substantial likelihood of cognitive impairment, and they probably still haven’t depleted their retirement nest egg.”In fact, the records show that more money was refunded to donors who were 80 and older than to adults under 50, on both ActBlue and WinRed, according to the examination of California refund data.ActBlue and WinRed both said they work with customers to solve any problems they encounter, but declined to comment further.Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, the chairwoman of the Rules Committee, which oversees federal elections administration, noted that many older Americans were particularly isolated during the coronavirus pandemic, and were simultaneously forced to be online more to connect with family and friends. “They had no choice,” she said, “so it is really easy to target them.”Ms. Klobuchar, a Democrat, recently introduced legislation to ban prechecked boxes that repeat donations after the Federal Election Commission unanimously recommended outlawing the practice in the wake of the Times investigation.“Politicians are always courting the votes of seniors,” she said. “Then, behind their backs, they’re scamming them for money. It’s pretty bad.”Some younger donors who are less internet-savvy also donated more than they intended.Daisy DeSimone, left, and her mother, Marian, at their home in New Jersey.Bryan Anselm for The New York TimesMarian DeSimone, the mother of Daisy DeSimone, who has a developmental disability, said her 30-year-old daughter was entrapped in a Republican recurring donation vortex last year that involved hundreds of small contributions totaling $2,700, about 85 percent of which went to two Trump committees.In a joint interview with her mother, Daisy said she contributed more than she intended, “by a lot,” and felt “frustrated” by her experience. She was most impassioned about the overwhelming volume of solicitations: “They would keep coming back to me, they would keep emailing me and texting me.”When her mother logged into her account to try to delete her from various lists, she discovered that the “unsubscribe” link from the Republican National Committee was in plain text. Unlike every other link, it was neither bold nor blue nor underlined. You had to hover above to see that it was a link at all.“Shameful!” she thought. At first, she had blamed her daughter for the deluge of donations. Now she sees her as a victim.Mothership Strategies, a Washington-based digital consulting firm, is known for its aggressive tactics in Democratic politics.Matt McClain/The Washington Post, via Getty Images‘A systemic campaign finance abuse issue’Overall, Republican campaigns issued refunds at far higher rates (7.4 percent of WinRed contributions) than Democratic ones (2.3 percent on ActBlue) in the 2020 election, a gap driven chiefly by Mr. Trump’s prechecked boxes scheme.But some Democratic donors did feel victimized.Susan Kraus is an 81-year-old New Yorker who, federal records show, made around 175 separate donations last year via ActBlue, totaling about $4,500.“That’s impossible,” Ms. Kraus said in an interview. “Never. I don’t know how that happened. But it wasn’t me doing it.” Both she and her son, Brett Graham, said she experiences short-term memory loss.“It’s almost like they were duplicating it,” she said. “Like there were tricks.” She recalls making donations with her phone but nothing at that scale, nor to the range of groups that records show she contributed to.“There isn’t a nice way to spin it,” said Mr. Graham, who helps manage his mother’s financial affairs. “This is a systemic campaign finance abuse issue.” He added that the overlapping pattern of giving was “not what a human being would do.” He was able to receive refunds for roughly $2,500 from two credit cards.The largest share of Ms. Kraus’s donations went to two interconnected groups, Stop Republicans and the Progressive Turnout Project, that she said she had never heard of. Both organizations share a Washington-based digital consulting firm, Mothership Strategies, that Democratic critics have singled out for its aggressive tactics.Of the top 10 Democratic groups with the oldest average age for refunded donors in California during the last election that refunded at least $75,000, all were Mothership clients.Those groups had an average age range of 74 to 78, the analysis of refund data shows. (WinRed does not itemize which campaigns provide refunds to particular donors, so an equivalent examination is not possible.)More than 40 percent of Facebook ads from Stop Republicans and the Progressive Turnout Project reached users over 65, according to a public database compiled by Bully Pulpit Interactive, a Democratic digital consultancy. In comparison, the Biden campaign devoted 18.5 percent of its Facebook ads to that demographic.Mothership said that it does not target people by age. Instead, it said, it screens based on interests and likelihood to donate — and that older people are simply more reliable donors.“We’re proud to raise the funds that allow our clients to outcompete Republican super PACs and elect progressive and diverse Democrats across the country,” Maya Garcia, a principal at Mothership, said in a statement. She added that the leaders of the firm “never want anyone to make an accidental contribution,” that it displays its organizations’ names prominently and that it works “to ensure all refund requests are handled quickly.”The company declined to say if it receives a commission on money it raises online. The Washington Post reported in 2019 that its commission was as high as 15 percent.A debate among Democrats on tacticsToday, most leading Republican groups deploy prechecked recurring boxes and other aggressive tactics, but in Democratic circles a debate is raging about the ethics of online solicitations. There are two clear camps: those who rose through the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the party’s House fund-raising arm, and its highly aggressive program, including Mothership Strategies, and those more aligned with the presidential campaigns of Senator Bernie Sanders.The D.C.C.C.’s operation is one of the few Democratic groups that continue to use the prechecked boxes. It has also experimented with another processing platform while ActBlue moves to block the practice entirely. In June, one fund-raising pitch came from a sender listed as “SOCIAL SECURITY UPDATE (via DCCC)” — though on platforms like Gmail, the D.C.C.C. part was cut off unless people clicked through.Murshed Zaheed, a veteran Democratic digital consultant, is among those pushing for what he calls “ethical email,” which he defined as not deceiving supporters.“I cannot tell you how much I hate the words ‘email list,’” he said. He said the phrase “dehumanizes” people and treats them “as A.T.M. machines.”For Mr. Vaughan, the former NASA scientist, his final credit card bill was a maze of repeating charges to the same campaigns, sometimes on the same day.The note his son discovered had the words “WinRed charges to be refunded” written clearly. It was dated Nov. 25 — the same day that federal records show $1,144 was refunded.It was only about 10 percent of his total giving. His son has been unable to recoup the rest.Rachel Shorey contributed research. More

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    How Trump Steered Supporters Into Unwitting Donations

    Online donors were guided into weekly recurring contributions. Demands for refunds spiked. Complaints to banks and credit card companies soared. But the money helped keep Donald Trump’s struggling campaign afloat.Stacy Blatt was in hospice care last September listening to Rush Limbaugh’s dire warnings about how badly Donald J. Trump’s campaign needed money when he went online and chipped in everything he could: $500.It was a big sum for a 63-year-old battling cancer and living in Kansas City on less than $1,000 per month. But that single contribution — federal records show it was his first ever — quickly multiplied. Another $500 was withdrawn the next day, then $500 the next week and every week through mid-October, without his knowledge — until Mr. Blatt’s bank account had been depleted and frozen. When his utility and rent payments bounced, he called his brother, Russell, for help.What the Blatts soon discovered was $3,000 in withdrawals by the Trump campaign in less than 30 days. They called their bank and said they thought they were victims of fraud.“It felt,” Russell said, “like it was a scam.”But what the Blatts believed was duplicity was actually an intentional scheme to boost revenues by the Trump campaign and the for-profit company that processed its online donations, WinRed. Facing a cash crunch and getting badly outspent by the Democrats, the campaign had begun last September to set up recurring donations by default for online donors, for every week until the election.Contributors had to wade through a fine-print disclaimer and manually uncheck a box to opt out.As the election neared, the Trump team made that disclaimer increasingly opaque, an investigation by The New York Times showed. It introduced a second prechecked box, known internally as a “money bomb,” that doubled a person’s contribution. Eventually its solicitations featured lines of text in bold and capital letters that overwhelmed the opt-out language.The tactic ensnared scores of unsuspecting Trump loyalists — retirees, military veterans, nurses and even experienced political operatives. Soon, banks and credit card companies were inundated with fraud complaints from the president’s own supporters about donations they had not intended to make, sometimes for thousands of dollars.“Bandits!” said Victor Amelino, a 78-year-old Californian, who made a $990 online donation to Mr. Trump in early September via WinRed. It recurred seven more times — adding up to almost $8,000. “I’m retired. I can’t afford to pay all that damn money.”The sheer magnitude of the money involved is staggering for politics. In the final two and a half months of 2020, the Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee and their shared accounts issued more than 530,000 refunds worth $64.3 million to online donors. All campaigns make refunds for various reasons, including to people who give more than the legal limit. But the sum the Trump operation refunded dwarfed that of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s campaign and his equivalent Democratic committees, which made 37,000 online refunds totaling $5.6 million in that time.The recurring donations swelled Mr. Trump’s treasury in September and October, just as his finances were deteriorating. He was then able to use tens of millions of dollars he raised after the election, under the guise of fighting his unfounded fraud claims, to help cover the refunds he owed.In effect, the money that Mr. Trump eventually had to refund amounted to an interest-free loan from unwitting supporters at the most important juncture of the 2020 race.Russell Blatt’s brother, Stacy, who was a supporter of Mr. Trump, died of cancer in February. Katie Currid for The New York TimesMarketers have long used ruses like prechecked boxes to steer American consumers into unwanted purchases, like magazine subscriptions. But consumer advocates said deploying the practice on voters in the heat of a presidential campaign — at such volume and with withdrawals every week — had much more serious ramifications.“It’s unfair, it’s unethical and it’s inappropriate,” said Ira Rheingold, the executive director of the National Association of Consumer Advocates.Harry Brignull, a user-experience designer in London who coined the term “dark patterns” for manipulative digital marketing practices, said the Trump team’s techniques were a classic of the “deceptive design” genre.“It should be in textbooks of what you shouldn’t do,” he said.Political strategists, digital operatives and campaign finance experts said they could not recall ever seeing refunds at such a scale. Mr. Trump, the R.N.C. and their shared accounts refunded far more money to online donors in the last election cycle than every federal Democratic candidate and committee in the country combined.Over all, the Trump operation refunded 10.7 percent of the money it raised on WinRed in 2020; the Biden operation’s refund rate on ActBlue, the parallel Democratic online donation-processing platform, was 2.2 percent, federal records show.How Refunds to Trump Donors Soared in 2020Refunds are shown as the percentage of money received by each operation to date via WinRed and ActBlue. More