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Editorial

Million-Dollar Tickets to the Inaugural

Credit...Damon Winter/The New York Times

No one has offered more vivid testimony about the power of money in politics than Donald Trump has in describing his personal history of writing campaign checks to sway politicians. He claims great success in what he calls “a broken system” of special interests. “When you give, they do whatever the hell you want them to do,” he said last year in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “As a businessman I need that.”

He took his eyewitness accounting a step further in the primary debates, noting that some of his presidential rivals had previously done well by his checkbook. “Most of the people on this stage I’ve given to, just so you understand, a lot of money,” he said. On the trail, Mr. Trump firmly promised reform: “Our campaign is about breaking up the special interest monopoly in Washington, D.C.”

All the more reason to sigh in regret, more than surprise, at the scale of big-money contributions from corporate and private donors that President-elect Trump’s inaugural committee is soliciting for its celebrations next month. Tiers of V.I.P. donors have been created, aiming to raise up to $75 million from special interests, which won’t be forgotten when the new administration gets down to governing.

The money tree is topped by a million-dollar-plus bracket promising donors a “candlelight dinner,” where Mr. Trump and his wife, Melania, will drop by; a lunch with cabinet appointees and Republican congressional leaders; and special entree to inaugural balls and parties. The tiers bottom out at $25,000, the cheapest ticket in a kind of garage sale for plutocrats.

The saddest aspect to the solicitation is that it marks a familiar quadrennial moment when campaign promises about banishing special interests from the capital’s inner circle are dashed. It must be noted that President Obama was the first to offer the million-dollar donor tier four years ago as he retreated from the reforms of his first inaugural, in which he accepted donations of no more than $50,000 from individuals and eschewed donations from corporations. (Obama fund-raisers offered the weak excuse that they had to solicit more widely in 2012 because the expensive campaign exhausted traditional donors.)

Thus does big-money politics thrive in Washington despite the sternest promises made on the campaign trail. “Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it,” he said last summer in accepting the nomination. Right, and a million dollars will get you an insider’s seat at the Trump inaugural.

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A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 22 of the New York edition with the headline: Million-Dollar Tickets to the Inaugural. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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