AP. Fort Wayne Journal Gazette- With Congress always looking for new ways to boost tax receipts and protect individual investors, it’s natural for hedge fund managers to worry that they have abull’s-eye on their chests – especially now that word is out that some of them made more than $1 billion apiece last year.
Politicians of both parties have long criticized the lack of regulation of hedge funds, vast pools of capital that operate secretively, without having to make the disclosures that other investment firms such as mutual funds do. Adding to their explosive growth and unbridled operations, the jaw-dropping compensation of their executives has made hedge funds even more tempting targets to federal lawmakers.
That helps explain a recent surge in the hiring of lobbyists and stepped-up contributions to political action committees by managers in the trillion-dollar hedge fund industry and top officials of private-equity groups that have piled up billions in profits in recent years.
Hedge fund executives gave at least $2.3 million in campaign donations during the 2004 election, compared with $576,000 four years earlier, according to federal election data compiled by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. In 2006, that jumped to around $6 million.
