Wealthy Republican Rep. Vern Buchanan didn’t just buy a yacht on the day he voted for the Republican tax law. He bought it using a loan from a bank that had lobbied for the tax bill. Buchanan’s net worth is at least $80 million, but for his 73-foot yacht, he turned to BMO Harris Bank for a loan of as much as $5 million. For its part, after the tax law passed, BMO Harris released an annual report forecasting that the law would “increase our annual net income from what it would have otherwise been.”
“One of” Buchanan’s limited liability companies bought the yacht using the loan, and:
At the time Buchanan’s company received the 2017 yacht loan, BMO Harris was lobbying congressional lawmakers on tax policy overseen by the Ways and Means Committee, according to federal records. Buchanan received a separate BMO Harris loan for a plane in 2016. Records show that loan, worth between $5 million and $25 million, was made around the same time that the bank began lobbying lawmakers on “tax reform proposals.”
A Buchanan spokesperson insists that BMO Harris did not lobby Buchanan and that he didn’t get preferential treatment on the loan. So, no, it probably wasn’t Trump-style crude, open corruption. It was more likely a gentlemen’s agreement, a matter of the rich guy and the bank that routinely gives him giant loans knowing that their interests are aligned and isn’t it nice how they can work together without ever having to speak directly about what they’re doing. But that makes it no less potent a reminder of how Republicans are consistently working to tilt the playing field in favor of the rich.
