This shows the flow of ~$185 Million/year of known (i.e. disclosed) corporate donations given to supposed “social welfare” 501(c)(4) and 501(c)(6) non-profits. And this is just the disclosed amounts from 1/3 of the largest 300 companies that disclose their gifts. Most companies do not disclose. The amounts no doubt become much bigger from those gifts that are anonymous for fear of bad publicity that it would engender. And it does not include the very nominal dues made to ALEC to write legislation favorable to business at the state and federal levels.
Take some time to peruse through the water fall chart provided in the link above (scroll down a bit). Click on the companies that were forthright enough to disclose and judge for yourself their motivations (is it to help their own bottomline, is truely for “social welfare” reasons, is it for training new work forces, etc.). Click on the non-profits to see where they get their money (at least from those that disclose). Read the whole article of individual story lines.
According to CPI’s analysis, ~84% goes to trade associations who generally speaking have the profits of their core givers in mind making a mockery of the the supposed reasons for “social welfare” 501(c)(4) and 501(c)(6) non-profits. How much is used for direct campaign gifts is not disclosed making a mockery of our supposed democracy and elections.
Complete disclosure of all gifts should be required or be not allowed - I would be willing to grant immunity for past offenses to make this happen.
In addition disclosure of how the non-profits spend their money (“light” and “dark”) must happen to bring to light just how “social welfarish” their spending is. Again I would grant immunity to clean up this gigantic scourge to democracy and our economics.
This did not happen all of a sudden due to
Citizen’s United but CU has legitimized corporate giving to electioneering and corporations have and increasingly are learning how far their donations go to their profitability through this route. No doubt steady-state has not been reached; we will know when that happens when the black line in the plot below comes to a “pause”.
Like GW, then we need to get it back down to 1920 levels via public funding of elections that will permit rich and poor alike equal opportunity for public service and in dissemination of political solutions towards the common good.
One the the research efforts (maybe a book if something profound results) I plan to pursue in retirement (within 2 years for sure) it is see what bills (with what side amendments) get moved through congress and what bills languish. Only ~5% make it through as of late. It will be detailed work (I have a statistic method in mind) but the DATA is there at and at .
Informed by Data.
Driven by the SPIRIT and JESUS’s Example.
Promoting the Kingdom of GOD on Earth.