Romney's SuperPAC for that reason, her crusade started long before. USA Today summed it up in 2005:

Led by Sam Walton's only daughter, Alice, the family spent $3.2 million on lobbying, conservative causes and candidates for last year's federal elections. That's more than double what it spent in the previous two elections combined, public documents show.

The Waltons have joined a coterie of wealthy families trying to save fortunes through permanent repeal of the estate tax, government watchdogs say. The election of President Bush and more conservatives to Congress gave momentum to the long-fought effort. The Waltons add more.

And to be sure, during the crippling recession that began in late 2007, the Waltons added a lot more to their own bank accounts.

Back in the fall of 2007, Walmart chief financialofficer Tom Schoewe told Wall Street analysts, "Tough times are actually a good time for Walmart." Now we know just how good.

As labor economist Sylvia Allegretto of the University of California and Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute documented last year, the Fed's Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) showed that the crippling recession which began five years ago has been a bonanza for the Walton Six. Between 2007 and 2010, the wealth of the Walton family members jumped from $73.3 billion to $89.5 billion even as median family wealth fell by 38.8 percent. The result?

In 2007, it was reported that the Walton family wealth was as large as the bottom 35 million families in the wealth distribution combined, or 30.5 percent of all American families.

And in 2010,