Locally provided public goods are not the only problem. Much of the harm of inequality, I argue, is due to the disproportionate influence that wealthier people have over public policy at all levels of government. This is most evident in the financial sector, which has been both a principal beneficiary of rising inequality and a main source of pressure for regulations that have increased the share of income at the top. State actions, such as the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, which exempted derivatives from regulation, and the SEC’s relaxation of leverage limits in 2004, played key roles not only in enriching the richest but also in enabling the financial crisis. The sluggish recovery, driven by austerity policies reflecting the policy preferences of the wealthy, continues to harm millions. The financial sector is hardly alone. Expansion of health insurance has long been held hostage to the protection of the better-off. Medicare was won only by buying off physicians’ opposition with a state-supported cartel to fix the prices of doctors’ services, helping to drive health-care inflation ever since. Obamacare was won only by buying off pharmaceutical companies’ opposition through a ban on state bargaining to reduce drug costs. The list of inequality-increasing, competition-limiting policies undertaken at the behest of the wealthy goes on and on.
Note that the quoted paragraph, while entirely true in all ways, omits substantiating links in the original, while being but a part of the Economist item. Read the entire item for full detail, including links. Also, have you noticed how Klobuchar represents mining's concentrated wealth, against the worry of a poisoned environment five hundred years into the future - that being roughly the time frame from Columbus' voyages to the present (a long time for certain)?
Think that over, in terms of Democrat politicians having been co-opted, or however else you'd care to rationalize the Senator's policy proclivities. She is not being part of the correct viewpoint any more than she was in embracing the big bridge to nowhere (make that to Hudson Wis, a relative nowhere in terms of whether that thing was wise to do or a problematic and unneeded affront to the environment with no sane cause behind building it).
UPDATE: Also, with regard to Klobuchar's willingness to serve mining interests vs other views of the public interest, Polymet is but Step One in mining's move, with Twin Metals' proposal a greater and more direct a threat to our Boundary Waters Wilderness Area. This google. And if Minnesota's senior Senator supports Step One, what's the likelihood she'd not traverse the entire slippery slope? To what possible environmental detriment?
FURTHER UPDATE: This link.