The Dictatorship
Americans’ electric bills are skyrocketing as utilities rake in record profits
This is an adapted excerpt from the May 31 episode of “Velshi.”
Just search “utility companies” under news, and you’ll find a familiar story playing out across the country: report after report of skyrocketing electric bills and mounting public anger with service providers. Out-of-control utility bills have become another aspect of the country’s affordability crisis, driven by an industry operating with too little accountability.
Retail electricity prices rose 7% in 2025 alone, part of a nearly 40% rise since 2021, which makes it the fastest period of electricity price growth on record. The average household’s monthly electric bill has climbed from roughly $121 in 2021 to $156 today, marking a nearly 30% increase that outpaces inflation.
In the words of the American Economic Liberties Project’s Matt Stoller: “Where’s all the f&$*#ing money going?”
Meanwhile, utility companies continue to ask regulators to let them charge even more money. In just the first three months of this year, utility companies sought approval for $9.4 billion in rate increases. That follows a record-setting 2025, when they requested $31 billion, more than double what they sought the year before.
According to the consumer advocacy group Powerlines“Today, nearly 80 million Americans are struggling to pay their utility bills, forgoing basic expenses like food, education, and health care to keep their lights on.”
In the words of the American Economic Liberties Project’s Matt Stoller: “Where’s all the f&$*#ing money going?”
For their part, the utility companies will point to extreme weather, aging infrastructure, the transition to cleaner energy and now the enormous power demands of data centers. And while that is real, it doesn’t add up — and it hasn’t for years. We have been paying more for years.
The government has increased spending on the U.S. transmission system fivefold over the past two decades. But if all that money were actually fixing the grid, why do we keep hearing the grid is unreliable? Why do we keep hearing we need even more?
The answer lies in the utility business model, the part most people never hear about. Most people assume utilities work like ordinary businesses. They don’t. A regulated utility does not primarily make money by selling you electricity at a markup. Nearly every dollar it spends on operating costs is ultimately recovered from customers through rates approved by government regulators.
The real profits come from something else: capital investment.
When a utility builds a power plant, transmission line, substation or other major piece of infrastructure, regulators allow it to recover those costs from customers over decades.
On top of that, the utility earns a guaranteed return on the money it invested. And that return is not trivial; for most investor-owned utilities, it falls somewhere between 9.5% and 11%. Compare that with what you earn in a high-yield savings account today, which is around 4% if you’re lucky.
According to the Energy and Policy Institute, a watchdog group that calls for greater accountability in the utility sector, investor-owned utilities pocketed $244 billion in profit off customers from 2021 through 2024.
Here’s the breakdown of those costs, according to the group’s executive director: “If a customer has a $200 electric bill, something on the order of $30 isn’t paying for electric poles, or wires, or power plants. It’s paying a wealth transfer to Wall Street and the company’s executives.”
Now, it should be noted, this is an analysis that industry groups dispute. But consider the incentives that kind of business model creates. If you’re guaranteed a premium on every dollar you spend, what’s your next move? It is likely not fixing the grid or upgrading aging facilities; it’s spending more dollars.
Build more projects, deploy more capital. Whether those projects are the most efficient solution or even strictly necessary becomes a secondary concern.
That helps explain one of the strangest features of America’s electricity system. As Stoller puts itutilities are “truly paid to fritter away money, to gold-plate and waste.” And, if that’s not bad enough, in some states these same utilities can spend your money on political activities.
According to the Energy and Policy Institutein states where laws prohibit utilities from charging customers for political spending, consumers are saving hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
Meanwhile, you, the average customer, are sitting around believing that paying more will lead to a better grid. That is the implicit bargain behind every rate increase. Customers are told that higher bills today will lead to a more reliable system tomorrow. Yet the opposite complaint seems to be growing louder every year.
The federal organizations responsible for monitoring the nation’s electric system have repeatedly warned that large portions of the country face increasing blackout risks as power demand grows and existing infrastructure ages.
Ultimately, the problem is that the system rewards spending itself: A utility that finds a cheaper solution earns less, and a utility that spends billions building — not fixing — infrastructure earns more.
As Stoller puts it“They are willing to waste $1,000 to send an extra $60 to shareholders.”
Many experts argue that one of the most effective ways to lower costs and improve reliability would be to build more high-voltage transmission lines connecting different regions of the country.
Think of the electric grid as a national marketplace. Some regions have abundant, inexpensive electricity. The Great Plains, for example, have some of the world’s best wind resources. The Southwest has enormous solar potential. Other regions, particularly dense population centers in the Northeast and parts of the Midwest, often face higher electricity costs and tighter supply constraints.
The obvious solution is to move more power between these regions. Done correctly, these projects can lower costs, improve reliability and make the entire system more resilient.
But that requires coordination. Large interstate transmission projects involve multiple states and multiple regulators, more oversight. And crucially, they don’t fit as neatly into the business model that rewards individual utilities for expanding their own assets.
As a result, utilities favor smaller local projects that are easier to approve, easier to build and guaranteed to generate shareholder returns.
Other countries have moved far more aggressively to build long-distance infrastructure capable of moving power across vast regions. Look at Chinawhich has built more than 8,200 miles of high-voltage transmission lines in recent years. The U.S. has built a mere 375.
At this point, you may be wondering: Where are the regulators? After all, utilities don’t operate in a free market. Customers can’t simply switch providers when rates rise.
The entire justification for granting utilities monopoly status is that government regulators are supposed to act on behalf of the public. In theory, that’s the safeguard. In the real world, that has become part of the problem.
Consider a recent example in Pennsylvania. When the Pennsylvania utility PECO — a subsidiary of Exelon, the largest utility in the country — recently asked for a return of nearly 11%far above the national average, it took the governor publicly shaming them to get it withdrawn.
Customers are told that higher bills today will lead to a more reliable system tomorrow. Yet the opposite complaint seems to be growing louder every year.
Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro called PECO’s proposed rate hike “pure greed.” In response, PECO said in a statement that the company “shares Governor Shapiro’s concerns about affordability and remains focused on keeping customer bills as low as possible while continuing to invest in safe and reliable service.”
The rising costs led Shapiro to launch a new watchdog to scrutinize utility profits.
But critics argue that many of the state commissions that are supposed to oversee these utilities have been effectively captured. The revolving door between regulators and utility companies means that today’s watchdog can become tomorrow’s utility executive, and vice versa.
At the same time, utility companies are often permitted to contribute money to the campaigns of officials involved in overseeing them. The result is regulatory capture, with the system increasingly serving the interests of the companies rather than the ratepayers it was designed to protect.
That’s why the industry’s response to virtually every challenge sounds so familiar. Need to strengthen the grid against storms? More spending. Need to accommodate renewable energy? More spending. Need to support artificial intelligence data centers? More spending. Need to improve reliability? More spending. And systems rarely reform themselves when the people involved are benefiting from the status quo.
Most Americans don’t understand the mechanics of rate bases, transmission planning or regulatory capture. They don’t need to. What they understand is that their bills keep rising. They understand that every year seems to bring a new explanation for why prices have to go up again.
For much of the 20th century, utilities were largely run by engineers. Their mission was straightforward: keep the lights on. Today, the system is run by financial engineers focused on returns on their investments.
Allison Detzel contributed.
Ali Velshi is the host of “Velshi,” which airs Saturdays and Sundays on BLN. He has been awarded the National Headliner Award for Business & Consumer Reporting for “How the Wheels Came Off,” a special on the near collapse of the American auto industry. His work on disabled workers and Chicago’s red-light camera scandal in 2016 earned him two News and Documentary Emmy Award nominations, adding to a nomination in 2010 for his terrorism coverage.
Amel Ahmed
Amel Ahmed is a Segment Producer for “Velshi.”
The Senate Judiciary Committee postponed a vote on acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s nomination, a spokesperson said late Wednesday, as two retiring Republicans on the panel dug in over President Donald Trump’s personal “anti-weaponization” deal with the government he runs.
Sen. Chuck Grassley’s decision to delay the committee vote that had been set for Thursday marks a setback for one of Trump’s highest-profile Cabinet nominees, at the hands of Texas Sen. John Cornyn and Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, a pair of Republicans set to leave the chamber next year.
“Chairman Grassley works to set President Trump’s nominees up for success in committee, not failure. Senators Cornyn and Tillis want written assurances from the Department of Justice regarding the Trump-IRS settlement,” the committee spokesperson said.
Blanche’s nomination to permanently head the Department of Justice needs the support of either Cornyn or Tillis to make it out of the committee to a vote by the full Senate, assuming all Democrats remain opposed.
“Why don’t you call over the Department of Justice and tell them they have one hour and 50 minutes to get me what I asked for,” Cornyn told reporters Wednesday afternoon amid the hardening standoff over his demand that Blanche and the DOJ put in writing a commitment never to pursue the president’s prized “anti-weaponization” fund, and to clarify the terms of Trump’s personal deal with the Internal Revenue Service.
Tillis told MS NOW that the conversations were complicated by the need for the Justice Department to get “several parties” to agree on the language of the statement Cornyn and Tillis are seeking.
“What I’ve advised the chair, and I would assume Senator Cornyn said something similar, is that we’re not prepared to vote yes yet,” he added.
“The Department has been in regular communication with Committee members for weeks, and we look forward to continuing to work productively with Senators to address any concerns,” a Justice Department spokesperson said in response to the decision to postpone the committee vote.
Cornyn was set to meet with Blanche on Wednesday morning, but the meeting was called off after Blanche failed to meet the senator’s demand for written proposals to modify the controversial settlement agreement he brokered between Trump and the IRS. The Republican senator is set to leave Congress when his term ends in January after a bruising May primary loss to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Trump’s chosen candidate.
“Maybe John Cornyn’s upset with me because I didn’t endorse him,” Trump told reporters Wednesday afternoon in the Oval Office. “I don’t know what it is, but I haven’t heard that there’s a problem. I heard (Blanche) is going through quite nicely.”
Cornyn made clear to Blanche during his confirmation hearing that he will not get his support until he agrees to reopen and modify the settlement. Due to the committee’s narrow Republican majority, one GOP “no” vote is enough to sink Blanche’s nomination.
The senator has asked Blanche to provide proof that the proposed nearly $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund established as part of the deal between Trump and the IRS is formally dead, and he has also demanded Blanche narrow the tax audit immunity provisions the settlement afforded to Trump and his family.
Blanche has publicly stated that his department has dropped the fund, but he and the DOJ have dodged requests from Cornyn and a federal judge to put that in writing.
After announcing his meeting with Blanche would not take place Wednesday morning, Cornyn told reporters that changes from Blanche “in a modified release form” would be acceptable, but that “for some reason … they simply refuse to do it,” referring to the DOJ.
Shortly after the meeting was called off, a Justice Department official told MS NOW that the department “provided a written proposal to Senator Cornyn’s staff yesterday following ongoing discussion with both the Committee and the Senator’s office.”
Cornyn said that proposal was “not responsive” to his demands because it did not address the tax audit immunity provisions in the settlement, one of his key demands.
In May, Blanche signed an addendum as part of the deal that granted Trump, his family and his businesses immunity from pending IRS tax audits. That agreement, which has been decried by former IRS officials and legal experts as unlawful self-dealing, is being contested in federal court.
Cornyn noted that Blanche testified under oath that he could meet the request during his confirmation hearing.
“Maybe they think I’m just going to give up or you know, go along, but they’re mistaken,” Cornyn said when asked why he thinks the DOJ could be slow-walking his request.
Kevin Frey contributed to this report.
Sydney Carruth is a breaking news reporter covering national politics and policy for MS NOW. You can send her tips from a non-work device on Signal at SydneyCarruth.46 or follow her work on X and Bluesky.
Mychael Schnell is a reporter for MS NOW.
Ebony Davis is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW based in Washington, D.C. She previously worked at BLN as a campaign reporter covering elections and politics.
When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived this week for his tour of Washington, he may have had a mission in mind.
Netanyahu needed to overcome his newly diminished stature and waning influence over his once close friend President Donald Trump as both leaders grapple with the unpopularity of a war they started together and is escaping their control.
His meeting at the White House with Trump on Tuesday, which was closed to the press, was the first face-to-face encounter between the two allies since the U.S. and Israel launched a joint attack against Iran on Feb. 28.
Trump gave him a muted welcome and afterwards simply described the meeting as “very good.” “Obviously, many important subjects were discussed,” the president wrote on Truth Social.
Rather than an intimate one-on-one setting, the Oval Office was full of top U.S. officials — Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, and special envoy Steve Witkoff.
But Netanyahu continued the full court press on the Trump administration.
Over the course of two days, in addition to seeing Trump and attending Sen. Lindsey Graham’s funeral at the Capitol, Netanyahu also met separately with Vance, Hegseth, and Rubio, White House and Israeli officials confirmed to MS NOW.
The Israeli prime minister’s slate of meetings with key U.S. national security officials comes at a pivotal moment in the Iran conflict as tensions escalate in the region and Americans increasingly sour on the war. A recent Quinnipiac poll shows 60% of American voters opposing U.S. military action against Iran and 74% against sending U.S. ground troops into Iran.
Not only does Trump face pressure as Republicans face an uphill battle to retain congressional control in this fall’s midterms, Netanyahu’s fate as prime minister is at stake in Israel’s upcoming September elections – and he can’t afford to lose Trump’s favor.
The talks largely focused on what to do next as Iran continues to menace shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and retaliate against American bases in the region and launch attacks on Gulf allies.
According to a senior Israeli official who was granted anonymity to describe the closed-door meeting, President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu did not come to a final decision after discussing three paths forward: get a “good deal” focused on Iran’s nuclear program and enriched material, have no deal and instead continue the blockade and economic pressure, or take escalated military action.
But Netanyahu did not tell Trump what he should do – nor did he express a preference.
The senior Israeli official noted Netanyahu has not ruled out diplomacy – as long as it is coupled with “very strong pressures,” calling the push to dismantle Iran’s nuclear program “a contest of will and a contest of force.”
“There are ways of squeezing them and squeezing them and squeezing them and negotiating at the same time,” the official said.
Netanyahu did not present President Trump with new intelligence regarding the underground Iranian nuclear facility Pickaxe Mountain, per the senior Israeli official, noting the U.S. and Israel already are constantly sharing intelligence – and know where Iran’s highly enriched material is. “We don’t think it’s moved, and I think we have a pretty good grasp on that,” the official said.
During their meeting on Tuesday, Trump and Netanyahu discussed ways Israel and the U.S. can work together to stop Iran’s nuclear program and get the Strait of Hormuz open to maritime trade, the senior Israeli official said.
The two leaders also discussed a third goal: to continue to undermine the Iranian regime and “possibly create future conditions for a change in that area.” U.S. officials have backed away from pursuing paths that would overthrow the current leadership, but Netanyahu still believes that could happen.
“The chasm that has been created between the people and the regime is not about to be closed,” the senior Israeli official said of Netanyahu’s thinking.
Netanyahu advised Trump in February that Israeli intelligence indicated launching strikes against Iran would lead to the toppling of the Islamic Republic’s regime – and five months later, the slain ayatollah’s son retains power with a close circle of hardliners, calling into question the accuracy of Israel’s intelligence apparatus.
But the senior Israeli official said at the time, Netanyahu did not promise the Iranian people would take fate into their own hands following a coordinated attack. Rather, he chose his words carefully and said that an attack could create conditions to “advance the probability or the possibility that that would happen.”
The conditions needed for the Iranian regime to fall, “did not materialize,” the official told MS NOW, adding, “not for lack of insight, but for either operational failure or decisions that were made.”
Despite Netanyahu insisting Israel and the U.S. are on the same page, differences still remain: the sale of F-35 fighter jets to Turkey and the Saudi nuclear arrangement did not come up during Wednesday’s White House meeting, according to a second Israeli official granted anonymity to describe sensitive discussions.
Meanwhile, the conflict continues to spread, with an Iranian drone attacking a U.S. gas storage tanker off the coast of Egypt on Wednesday.
Trump indicated he would not let Iran’s latest action slide, telling reporters on Wednesday that the U.S. would retaliate against Iran even as he leaves room for diplomatic talks to resume.
“It’s our turn, and we’ll see if we get there with an agreement at some point,” Trump said. “But we’re going to hit them very hard.”
As for what it would take for Israel to join the U.S. strikes, the senior Israeli official said that if Israel is attacked by Iran, “We will respond very, very forcefully and very quickly. And I think Iran would make a great mistake.”
Julia Jester covers politics for MS NOW and is based in Washington, D.C.
International rage over FIFA’s close ties to President Donald Trump has reached a fever pitch after soccer’s governing body announced a plan to sell a significant stake to an investor group led by Joshua Kushner, the brother of Trump’s son-in-law.
The president and his family have all but turned the White House into their personal piggy bank. And FIFA — which has its own sordid history of corruption — seems to have made itself a party to Trump’s self-enrichment under Gianni Infantino’s leadership, such as by paying for space inside Trump Tower in New York. (The organization has defended the office rental as a World Cup outpost.)
Soccer is seen by many as a unifying game. But Trump’s incorporation of FIFA into his political dynasty is threatening that idea.
FIFA has announced plans to sell a large minority stake in a new company that will run its main events, including the World Cup and Club World Cup, as part of a plan to triple the amount of development money it dishes out to its 211 member associations.
Under the proposals — which are subject to approval by a majority of those national associations and FIFA’s 37-member council — a new entity called FIFA Forward Enterprises (FFE) will take over all commercial operations, while FIFA remains the game’s global governing body and retains a majority stake in FFE.
A press release from FIFA confirmed the plans and said Thrive Eternal, which was launched by Joshua Kushner, is expected to lead the investment group that would control FIFA Forward Enterprise. FIFA did not clarify why Thrive Eternal was selected, and Kushner was already dabbling in sports.
But Trump basically has already given son-in-law Jared Kushner carte blanche to dictate U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East while simultaneously hatching business plans in the region. (Jared Kushner has denied any conflicts of interest.)
Joshua Kushner reportedly has been a major donor to Democrats. But, predictably, the idea of another Kushner becoming financially entwined with the World Cup — the world’s most popular sporting event — and basically being dropped into a position of global significance isn’t going over well. Several other soccer governing bodies have expressed concerns, including Europe’s UEFA.
“This crosses a line that football’s governing institutions should never cross,” UEFA said in a statement about The Athletic’s report, adding: “The soul and governance of football are not assets to trade — especially with zero transparency as to who gains financially. None of us are the owners of football. It is not FIFA’s to sell.”
Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee also rebuked the plan, writing on X: “Apparently the fake Peace Prize and giant lease with Trump Tower weren’t enough — now Infantino performs a kickback hat trick by pursuing a multibillion-dollar deal with Jared Kushner’s brother to sell ownership stakes in the World Cup to private investors.”
FIFA, Donald Trump’s favorite corrupt racketeering enterprise in world sports, is now going directly into business with the Trump family!
Apparently the fake Peace Prize and giant lease with Trump Tower weren’t enough—now Infantino performs a kickback hat trick by pursuing a… https://t.co/knSZibuMea
— House Judiciary Dems (@HouseJudiciary) July 28, 2026
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., has already launched an investigation into the FIFA leader’s relationship with the Trump administration, while dozens of European lawmakers — citing concerns about “potential breaches of political neutrality” — have called for the FIFA Ethics Committee to investigate Infantino. This new proposal seems unlikely to assuage those concerns.
But what it does seem likely to do is fuel global anger toward the U.S. — the kind that has been growing since Trump retook office.
And when you consider that, it’s truly remarkable how the same MAGA movement whose members whined for years about politics mixing with sports is now in lockstep with a president who seems dead-set on casting his shadow over every sports event he can.
This post on X basically sums up the foul stench around FIFA’s latest proposal.
Sepp Blatter was Infantino’s predecessor as FIFA president and oversaw the organization amid some of its many scandals. When heof all people, is warning about how Trump and Infantino’s relationship is “deeply damaging” soccer, it’s a sign of how far FIFA has descended into the gutter.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.
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