In Bill Moyer’s blog, Kim Barker and Justine Elliot of Pro Publica,
point out 6 facts that are overlooked in the IRS scandal. The report has mainly
to do with dark money groups parading as social welfare non profits.
1.
“Social welfare nonprofits are supposed to have social welfare, and
not politics, as their ‘primary’ purpose.” This should be obvious and is a tax
exemption created a century ago. The language may be vague but it isn’t that
vague. Some say they should be spending 51% of social welfare; what a load of
horse pucky. Yes, the IRS could be more clear but the intent is clear but folk
work around it.
2.
“Donors to social welfare nonprofits are anonymous for a reason.”
Of course, if their purpose is clear. But some use that as just a method to
hide. There is a difference between giving to the NAACP and some super PAC
where the big bucks guys can hide.
3.
“The Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision meant that corporations
could pay for political ads, anonymously, use social welfare nonprofits.” That
decision may go down as the most boneheaded decision of the court in all time
and does exactly what number two was about; that makes it seem like number 2 to
me. PACs are one thing, this is just blarney and should have stones thrown at
it.
4.
“Social welfare nonprofits do not actually have to apply to the IRS
for recognition as tax-exempt organizations.” Weird, charities have to do that
but not non-profits. Seems stupid to me. If we had the same requirements many
of these issues would not have been issues and could have been caught in a
timely manner rather than after elections.
5.
“Most of the money spent on elections by social welfare
nonprofits supports Republicans.” They point
out that more than $256 million special by social welfare nonprofits on ads in
the 2012 elections, at least 80% came from conservative groups. Do you suppose
that might have had something to do with the “targeting?” This did not include
the Tea Party. Plus there are tens of millions spent by groups on ads months
before the election that are not reported to the FEC.
6.
“Some social welfare groups promised in their applications, under
penalty of perjury, that they wouldn’t get involved in elections. Then they did
just that.” An example here is the American
Future Fund a conservative nonprofit that spend millions is campaign ads
after they checked the “no” response in 2008. One went on their YouTube account
the same day they answered, “no.” Another is Alliance for America’s Future, one more the Government Integrity Fund; does that seem a bit ironic? Such great
sounding names blatantly lacking integrity.
To me, all of this is just another sign of the corruption of our
campaign laws and methods in this country. I don’t care if the Republicans are
the biggest abusers of this system, Democrats are right there with them on a
smaller scale. We need to fix the system so these abuses cannot take place.
In the book, One Way Forward,
I blogged about earlier, the author proposes a pledge for members of congress: “I hereby pledge to do whatever it takes to end corrupting influence of
money in our government.” He then goes on to list three principles to
fulfill that commitment: 1) To provide that public elections are publicly
funded; 2) To limit, and make transparent, contributions and independent
political expenditures; and 3) To reaffirm that when the Declaration of
Independence spoke of entities “endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable Right,” it was speaking of natural persons only.
We get email pledges for members of congress all the time, some
which are a bit lopsided, but this one really makes sense and works for both
parties for the citizens of the country. Here is something we can be for rather
than against. And, if followed it would eradicate all that which we began this
article with.
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