The Sins of Tom DeLay - Putting the Far Right in Control (CNP Info)

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On April 29, 1992, Tom DeLay stood up on the House floor and decried a "tax-funded boondoggle" that sent freshman members of Congress to Harvard for a seminar. "Yes," DeLay asserted, "the congressional freshman orientation at Harvard doesn't cost millions of dollars. But even the thousands of dollars of tax money used for this congressional boondoggle sets a bad example for new Members of Congress." Instead, DeLay urged, "grassroots organizations" should conduct orientations at no cost to the American taxpayer. The organizations DeLay named were the Coalition for America, the Council for National Policy, Free Congress, and Free the Eagle, all radical conservative groups with ties to the right-wing Christian evangelical movement.

... (For those of you don't who don't know, the CNP is a Secretive Group which is one of my areas of expertise.)

Tom DeLay was wrong that CNP's activities do not cost the taxpayers a dime. CNP and its members benefit twice from its tax-exempt status: its members can take a tax deduction for their (often hefty) membership dues, and CNP pays no federal income tax on its revenues. CNP even convinced the legislature of Virginia, where it now maintains its headquarters, to exempt it from paying sales tax on items purchased in the state. And considering that members pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual contributions (CNP insists that these are not membership "dues," but rather "contributions," a classification that allows its members to fully deduct the amount, since the portion of membership dues for which a member receives benefits and privileges are not deductible), its members are receiving a significant financial benefit at a cost to American taxpayers. In 2003, the last year for which CNP's tax filings are available, it received almost a million dollars in contributions, including donations from the foundations of some of the wealthiest Americans, such as the Coors and deVos families. Considering that CNP only has a few hundred members, they each are receiving a healthy tax advantage for their generous contributions. Certainly, to borrow from DeLay's comments, the cost to taxpayers is thousands, not millions of dollars. But more important than the financial cost is the cost to democracy.

http://www.alternet.org/story/21372/