This blogger follows the money. That is his hobby and his passion. In this post, he tracks Walton funding for “advocacy.”
I put advocacy in scare quotes because foundations are tax-exempt and supposedly non-political. Yet the tax laws apparently allow them to put some of their money to work advocating for what appear to be political goals, in the case of the Waltons, the privatization of public education.
When it comes to funding “advocacy,” the Gates Foundation is right up there with multi-millions.
Say this for the Waltons: they are consistent. They don’t attempt to hide their agenda. They like charters and vouchers. They don’t like anything involving regulation or government.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I wonder if there’s a certain % you are allowed to spend on advocacy–which enables Walton rather than FairTest to spend a lot!
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The next thing you know the IRS will be claiming
the Democratic Party is a political organization.
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There is over $680 billion in foundations in the U.S. now. They buy and sell politicians and all the astroturf groups. Just look at the NAACP, Urban League, SCLC and on and on as to where they obtain their funding. If you cross your funder your nice clothes, car, job, free plane flights, free meals and hotel rooms are gone. Would you cross them? It is a shame to watch. Then you have an organization like Green Peace which will not take their money only individual donations and look at what they are accomplishing whether you like them or not they are not compromised and have turned down large donations from major groups and corporations to stay clean. Always look at who funds who as it is “Follow the Money.” These people laugh all the way to the bank on how easy it is to buy and sell all the way to the Prez.
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Follow the money!” could be the mantra of our time. Having watched the abuse of tax payers dollars and privitized donors at the hands of presummed honest people from politicians to schoolboards, schools at all levels of institutional learning, religious institutions and their charities, charitable and advocacy organizations, etc. is nothing new. With a million excuses why it is not a bad thing because it is a way people network their cause. To many it is just the cost of business, success, and progress.
The general public learned from their wealthier counterparts. If being in the old boys club, getting into the right country club or yachting club, showing up at the right cocktail parties and dinning at the “right”
restaurants, etc. is the price of getting a contract, moving a bill, getting the kids into the best school or activity, is what the public was taught, they learned from those that were the best shapers of this kind of society. So after awhile, it became a way of thinking it was all
acceptable and legitimate. Whole industries are built around this behavior. Or as some would confess “it is the price of business..”
I have no problem with the wealthy, I have a problem with the greedy, no matter the amount of money they are playing with.
I am sure the Walton’s accountants have looked for every creative financing trick they can use to protect the money which feeds them. They are a dynasty and manipulators of the powerful and any % saved here and there grows the influence. These are people, along with a select others, who are working very hard to dismantle a system that is dedicated from it’s foundation to help develop an opportunity for all Americans to prosper, not just some or the selected worthy by a small set of the powerful.
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What do you know about the Helmsley Foundation?
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