So what is a very liberal Democrat to do when my candidate,
President Obama, seems to be adopting methods that I have criticized
conservative Republicans for using? In
particular, below is a link to a 2/23/13 NYTIMES article about the expansive
agenda being formulated by Organizing for Action (OFA), Obama’s new 501c-4
“social welfare” organization.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/23/us/politics/obamas-backers-seek-deep-pockets-to-press-agenda.html?hpw&_r=0
While OFA states that it will make public the names of its
donors and at least initially seems to be focused on direct and grassroots
organizing, OFS looks like an overtly political organization that will try to
directly influence election outcomes if this is deemed necessary to advance the
President’s legislative agenda. This
goes beyond the IRS’s permissable boundaries for 501c-4 organizations. What I don’t understand is why Obama is
choosing to achieve his legislative goals by setting up a separate 501c-4
rather than using and building upon the existing Democratic Party
structure. Where is the appropriate line
for nonprofit organizations between legitimate lobbying designed to influence
legislation, and nonprofit electioneering designed to
influence who is in the legislature casting the critical votes? Can someone help me out here?
i agree that this is an important issue and should be given higher priority before (c)(4)'s run amok and there is no chance to keep them in order. having run a small (c)(4), and being very concerned with the group's reputation, i was extremely careful with the bookkeeping always leaning away from the political to the educational just to be sure we kept well inside IRS rules. Over the decades, i have questioned why it is even necessary to have 'political' included in (c)(4). it has become expected that each (c)(3) - political - has a 'companion' educational org. ours was 3 doors down the hall and that was in the 80's. would it solve the problem to just ban 'political' from 'educational' given that this would not prevent either from doing their 'job'? AND i too am very disappointed in Prez for abusing this classification. shame shame!
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