These freakin' RW think tanks are killing this nation.

[Skidmore]

Anyone listening to the Krepinevich, Ctr for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, on CSPAN WJ now? Doesn't know anything about anything when questioned but does know that death and destruction is needed for decades to come. Their jobs are to foment and create war. Every last one of these are linked to the security industry or the military in some way.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

1. I just posted about this guy too...

Sickening isn't it?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x311865

[FormerDittoHead]

2. OK, here's where my broken record skips over and over....

Please read slowly and think, I used to be an accountant, so this comes natural for me, but no one seems to "get" this:

These "think tanks" are treated as CHARITIES.

"Contributions" to "think tanks" are TAX DEDUCTABLE.

The rich are PAYING LESS TAXES funding these "think tanks".

OK, now it gets really complicated. No one seems to understand this next point:

In our tax code, political spending is *NOT* tax deductable.

If you give money to say, moveon.org, it's NOT tax deductable....

If you give money to say, the Heritage foundation, it IS.

By shifting the tax burden away from themselves by funding the think tanks, *WE* ARE FINANCING THE THINK TANKS...

[Skidmore]

3. This deserves a thread of its on and some political action.

[canichelouis]

8. I agree

Bring this issue to light

[NJCher]

6. whew, thanks for that point

I hadn't thought that through. I'm going to be pointing that out to my friends, colleagues, and students.




Cher

[Hubert Flottz]

7. The churches that preach that the idiot in the WH is the...

"Way, The Truth and The Light," should pay taxes too!

[emulatorloo]

9. fascinating -- I HAD NO IDEA -- please start your own thread EOM

[Igel]

10. Think tanks, like many other institutes, are

considered "charitable institutions", not "charities" in the way we sometimes think of them (they don't distribute money or food to the poor). They benefit from the largesse, and don't channel the money to the needy. Except a very restricted set of "needy".

They hire researchers and give grants. The recipients give speeches and publish papers. The propagate a particular point of view, but they do so in a non-political way (as defined by statute). They do not endorse politicians. In fact, frequently they dispute with them, even those of the same political stripe. They formulate policies, produce hypotheses and try to find evidence to support them (or refute others' hypotheses) and thereby they affect society. Much as faculty at major research institutions do. Therefore, they're typically classed with research universities and the like as "educational".

There's nothing preventing dems from having liberal think tanks. Maybe we could call one the "Brookings Institute".

[FormerDittoHead]

11. Unfortunately, the reality is starkly different.

You're right. They don't come right out and specifically say that they endorse a specific candidate or specific party.

But to suggest that The Heritage Foundation, The American Enterprise Institute, et al are non-political is legal double speak.

I don't care what the law says. I say we need to change the law.

I'm not against the first amendment. I'm against making biased political speech a tax write off.

I also disagree that the "answer" is to fund our own think tanks. That's the "frame":

The "frame" of that reasoning is that the war of political propaganda (the BS aside) is won by those who can garner the most financing. I reject that "frame". The rich will surely win THAT war every time.

[Igel]

18. If we change the law, then many

university departments and the few liberal think tanks that are out there would also be closed or at least stripped of non-profit status, as would liberal groups that issue policy papers, such as NOW and environmental organizations. Even worse, many university departments actually get state and federal money. Not all are liberal; but most of their faculty are dems, and their writings are commensurate with the range of Democratic thought.

Or we can just ban certain kinds of thought, political writings, and even political parties while we're at it.

[FormerDittoHead]

19. Slippery slope arguments aside, you do point out the dangers...

But we're not talking about banning anything.

We're talking about tax deductions.

But your point is well made.

Like political financing in general, I guess the idea is to think about what's wrong with the system and think of what can be done to fix it.

[donco6]

13. I totally get it. It sucks. eom

[libnnc]

14. holy crap, I didn't know this

thank you for posting.

:mad:

[The Backlash Cometh]

17. Excellent synopsis.

I had no idea that the Heritage foundation was not paying taxes. This is a crime!

[zanne]

4. Well, at least it isn't the American Enterprise Institute...

They're on C-Span so often. When I first started watching C-Span, I thought they were OWNED by the AEI. C-Span can't possibly claim not to be in cahoots with these guys; they're joined at the hip.

[leftofthedial]

5. Ike was right

and we didn't listen

[ourbluenation]

12. k/r

[grace0418]

15. Does "RW THINK TANK" strike anyone else as a complete

oxymoron?

[The Backlash Cometh]

16. Those son of a bitches tried to cut Head Start programs to

blacks based on Bell Curve type studies. Basically, they were saying that because blacks were less intelligent than everyone else, that it was pointless to direct public money in those kinds of programs.

They had a Grover Norquist agenda and they were going to implement it through whatever devious means possible.

[eppur_se_muova]

20. Good post. These guys need more attention, but of a different nature.

We need to start turning over some rocks and see what's crawling around under there, before they pupate and the next ** emerges.