Another name for Ezra Klein’s 501c4 list: Rhee’s StudentsFirst:
by Valerie Strauss
My colleague Ezra Klein, the founder of theWonkbook blog, just wrote a post about the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of the tea party. It carried this headline: “The IRS was wrong to target the tea party. They should’ve gone after all 501(c)4s.”
These nonprofit organizations are tax-exempt, which, as Klein notes, means that they are subsidized by American tax dollars — but, they don’t have to tell the public where they get their money. Donors can remain secret. They aren’t supposed to be political, but increasingly they are.
In his post, Klein says this about the IRS:
If it discriminated against tea party groups that attempted to register as 501(c)4 social welfare organizations, then that’s a grave offense, and it needs to be investigated thoroughly and dealt with severely.But the particular bias people are angry about is the opposite of the bias they should be angry about. The problem wasn’t that the IRS was skeptical of tea party groups registering as 501(c)4s. It’s
by Valerie Strauss
For an initiative billed as being publicly driven, the Common Core States Initiative has benefited enormously from the generosity of the private philanthropy of Bill and Melinda Gates. How much? About $150 million worth. Take a look at this list … Continue reading →
