2 ms·

OFA only switched to a tax-exempt organization in January 2013. I don't know the full story behind that, but I feel that their activity before 2013 was primari

by jbooth 13y ago

OFA only switched to a tax-exempt organization in January 2013. I don't know the full story behind that, but I feel that their activity before 2013 was primarily political and shouldn't be tax-exempt (and it wasn't).

hga 13y ago
And their first big campaign as a 501(c)(4) was gun control, and that's not political? Note, I'm not saying that's wrong, in fact, it mirrors the NRA's ILA on the opposite side of that fight. Look, we had an established system for doing this sort of thing, and it makes no sense whatsoever to make political organizations organize as for profit entities, monetary return on investment is not their game. And donations for political purposes to 501(c)(4) orgs are not tax deductible for the donors. What we'd like is a return to the level playing field pre-Obama, but I don't know of anyone who believes that will happen, e.g. the IG finished the audit of the program in the middle of last year, obviously didn't release the results, but most damningly didn't stop the abuse, which continues to this day.
- jbooth 13y ago
  That's actually a legitimate argument. In theory, there could be a tea party group that was doing issue advocacy and not campaigning for candidates. In practice, many of them were in fact advocating for candidates, and the IRS screwed up by not scrutinizing all issue groups equally. You've actually changed my mind a little on this. I don't believe that this was some nefarious obama socialist plot (under a Bush appointed supervisor) as you seem to but I now think that the IRS actually screwed up as opposed to failed to cover their ass. So good job. Honest question: If extra review of obviously-political groups calling themselves social welfare organizations were perfectly balanced across the political spectrum, would you support it?
  - hga 13y ago
    Not sure, I find it impossible to believe that the establishment will give anti-establishment political organizations a fair shake, which is exactly what happened in this scandal. These orgs are not partisan per se, for all I know there's some anti-establishment Democrats out there that they've supported (e.g. many of my home state's Missouri Democratic "liberals" are to the right of the national Republican party/establishment), and they've collected many Republican establishment scalps. But one of the problems is that before the fact investigation just doesn't work, for how can you tell if an org is going to do impermissible actions? The only one that counts is coordination with a campaign, which is by definition secret, because the other impermissible actions (at least that I know of) are by definition public. Although, now that I think about it, I'm not sure where the lines are drawn. The NRA-ILA explicitly "endorses" some politicians in addition to grading all they can afford to do, and boy do anti-gun Republicans squeal like stuck pigs when the NRA tells the truth, or, worse, goes after them with a rusty knife like they did with F rated Lugar. So explicit endorsement per se does not cross the line.... Look at the examples of the suppressed orgs that said their purpose was teaching people about the Constitution. That's obviously subversive nowadays (heck, look at the IRS ex-Commissioner I think who said he didn't know the contents of the 1st Amendment), and yet they somehow deserve extra scrutiny? Look up the concept of prior restraint, which the government is seldom allowed to do when it comes to enumerated Constitutional rights. I.e. they can't order the press to not do something, only prosecute them afterwords.

by jbooth 13y ago

hga 13y ago

And their first big campaign as a 501(c)(4) was gun control, and that's not political? Note, I'm not saying that's wrong, in fact, it mirrors the NRA's ILA on the opposite side of that fight. Look, we had an established system for doing this sort of thing, and it makes no sense whatsoever to make political organizations organize as for profit entities, monetary return on investment is not their game. And donations for political purposes to 501(c)(4) orgs are not tax deductible for the donors. What we'd like is a return to the level playing field pre-Obama, but I don't know of anyone who believes that will happen, e.g. the IG finished the audit of the program in the middle of last year, obviously didn't release the results, but most damningly didn't stop the abuse, which continues to this day.

jbooth 13y ago
That's actually a legitimate argument. In theory, there could be a tea party group that was doing issue advocacy and not campaigning for candidates. In practice, many of them were in fact advocating for candidates, and the IRS screwed up by not scrutinizing all issue groups equally. You've actually changed my mind a little on this. I don't believe that this was some nefarious obama socialist plot (under a Bush appointed supervisor) as you seem to but I now think that the IRS actually screwed up as opposed to failed to cover their ass. So good job. Honest question: If extra review of obviously-political groups calling themselves social welfare organizations were perfectly balanced across the political spectrum, would you support it?
- hga 13y ago
  Not sure, I find it impossible to believe that the establishment will give anti-establishment political organizations a fair shake, which is exactly what happened in this scandal. These orgs are not partisan per se, for all I know there's some anti-establishment Democrats out there that they've supported (e.g. many of my home state's Missouri Democratic "liberals" are to the right of the national Republican party/establishment), and they've collected many Republican establishment scalps. But one of the problems is that before the fact investigation just doesn't work, for how can you tell if an org is going to do impermissible actions? The only one that counts is coordination with a campaign, which is by definition secret, because the other impermissible actions (at least that I know of) are by definition public. Although, now that I think about it, I'm not sure where the lines are drawn. The NRA-ILA explicitly "endorses" some politicians in addition to grading all they can afford to do, and boy do anti-gun Republicans squeal like stuck pigs when the NRA tells the truth, or, worse, goes after them with a rusty knife like they did with F rated Lugar. So explicit endorsement per se does not cross the line.... Look at the examples of the suppressed orgs that said their purpose was teaching people about the Constitution. That's obviously subversive nowadays (heck, look at the IRS ex-Commissioner I think who said he didn't know the contents of the 1st Amendment), and yet they somehow deserve extra scrutiny? Look up the concept of prior restraint, which the government is seldom allowed to do when it comes to enumerated Constitutional rights. I.e. they can't order the press to not do something, only prosecute them afterwords.