Maurice Cunningham, a political science professor at the University of Massachusetts, is a specialist in “follow the money.”
He writes in his latest post that the Waltons are targeting Elizabeth Warren not so much because of her stance on charter schools but because of her proposed wealth tax.
He writes:
If the Waltons hate anything so much as unions, it would be taxes. The family and WalMart are huge into tax dodging. And guess who has a plan for that? Elizabeth Warren. So yes the Waltons are big into charter schools but they are bigger into their own wealth. Disrupting Warren on any grounds is a good thing to them. Remember, dark money is never what it seems.
Here in Massachusetts the Waltons have their own political operation as I showed in The Walton Family’s Massachusetts Political Team, 2019.
And the beauty of these political operations the Walton Family Foundation backs in Massachusetts and around the country? They are mostly tax deductible at the top rate of thirty-seven percent. The Waltons pick up about sixty-three percent of this and you, the grateful taxpayer, pick up thirty-seven percent.
When the Waltons push charter schools, what they really mean is lower state and local taxes on Wal-Mart. When the Waltons try to shout down Elizabeth Warren, it’s about the wealth tax. The Waltons do all this with tax deductible political fronts. Taxes, taxes, taxes.
What happened in Georgia is that a taxpayer subsidized unit of the political front of one of America’s richest families attempted to shut down a political candidate. Expect more of this.
Money never sleeps. Follow the money.
At this very moment, Walmart is suing various states (even Arkansas) to lower their property taxes! That means less money available to support public schools and other public services! This is a family whose collective wealth is more than $160 billion, and they think their property taxes are too high!
Maurice Cunningham played an important role in the referendum about charter school expansion in Massachusetts in 2016 by revealing Dark Money and its sources; I write about him in my forthcoming book SLAYING GOLIATH. And the first page of the book quotes his memorable line: “Money never sleeps. Follow the money.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Warren takes the handoff from the quarterback, Sanders, and runs the ball off the left tackle. The Billionaire Boys clog up the middle of the line. Rookie center Buttigieg misses his block like he’s still playing college ball. There’s nowhere for Warren to go. No, wait, it’s a fake! Sanders still has the ball! He’s going up the left side of the field. He’s untouched. He could. Go. All. The. Way. It’s a touchdown! Progressives win! Progressives win!
Ha! For the first time in my life, I took an interest in football, reading this! Well done.
How ’bout them reds, eh? LOL.
Red and green. Red for Ed and Green New Deal.
Excellent comment. Thank you, Left Coast Teacher.
And so it begins. . . .
I will vote for Warren or Sanders. That does not change the fact that they are not winning. Why would anyone want to vote for candidates who have been advocating for WORKING CLASS Americans for over 20 years? ( I don’t know many middle mangers).
Forget the hit Job done on M4All by the right, the insurance industry and Corporate Democrats. M4all has 70% support till you tell people they are paying for it. Then it drops to 40% support. Have that 30% had their brains sucked out by Martian invaders. It would be one thing if they made those decisions after analyzing the pro and con. Most do not even realize that they pay for it every hour they work.
Does Denmark take American asylum seekers.
Some American parents report that they have plans to send their kids to colleges in developed nations so that the kids have a head start on immigration to those countries.
The wealthy’s plan in the U.S. is to rely on Catholic and other religious schools to achieve the bishops’ stated educational purpose, “to preserve civic order”. Their plan worked in the past, when libertarian economics played out and 1,000,000 Irish starved to death.
I was curious about the following part of the post about the tax deductibility of the Walton Family Foundations political work:
“And the beauty of these political operations the Walton Family Foundation backs in Massachusetts and around the country? They are mostly tax deductible at the top rate of thirty-seven percent. The Waltons pick up about sixty-three percent of this and you, the grateful taxpayer, pick up thirty-seven percent.”
My assumption was that political contributions are not tax deductible, so I asked a cousin, who teaches tax accounting at a university, for his thoughts on the post. Here is his response, which I thought was interesting and worth sharing.
(The remainder of this comment consists of his response.)
“Just because you read it in a blog doesn’t make it true, although it may be.
Contributions to 501(c)(3) tax exempt organizations are tax deductible. Contributions to 501(c)(4) tax exempt organizations aren’t. (c)(4) organizations can do lobbying (advocate for and support legislation) and are can do political speech (advocate for a specific candidate in an election). The NRA is one of these organizations. They chose to be (c)(4) rather than (c)(3) so they could lobby and do political speech. In exchange, they give up the right to provide a tax deduction to their donors.
(c)(3) organizations provide a tax deduction to their donors. However, they are not allowed to do any political speech. They can lobby, but not very much. For example, the arthritis foundation can lobby for a bill to provide funds to support research, but it can’t be a significant portion of their expenditures.
The devil is in the details. Organizations that support quality education for all could choose to be either (c)(3) or (c)(4). Providing information about school choice would be okay for a (c)(3). Supporting specific candidates or doing a bunch of lobbying wouldn’t. It isn’t clear what constitutes lobbying and what doesn’t. It also isn’t clear how much lobbying is too much.
The IRS is the enforcer of these rules. They have very limited resources in the exempt org area. They don’t examine many exempt orgs unless they get a complaint. They are also reluctant to examine exempt orgs on issues that are politically sensitive. For example, a couple of election cycles back some churches touted that they were supporting a specific candidate and essentially dared the IRS to try to take away their (c)(3) status. The IRS did nothing.
They may have multiple exempt orgs, some (c)(3) and some (c)(4). The Sierra Club works that way. They have 2 exempt orgs. One supports environmental issues without supporting political candidates or doing much lobbying. The other does a bunch of lobbying and supports specific candidates. They are very clear in their literature about which one you are contributing to and whether or not you get a tax deduction.
So…the blogger may be correct, partially correct, or not correct at all.”
Thanks, Marty,
As president of the Network for Public Education, I am aware of the differences between a c(3) and c(4).
I am also aware that many very political organizations blur the line and get away with it (we don’t).
For example, ALEC writes model legislation for its members (some 2,000 very conservative state legislators), who go home and introduce it in their state. Its bills promote privatization of public services and deregulation of guns, the environment, and business.
Contributions to ALEC are tax-deductible.
Read about it at ALEC Exposed, which lists corporate and private donors as well as the model bills.
Thank you, Diane, for the reply. While I also understood the difference between a c(3) and a c(4), I didn’t understand the comment about the Walton Foundation’s political operations
being “mostly tax deductible at the top rate of thirty-seven percent.” As you point out and my cousin implied, I guess the answer is that they (and others, such as ALEC) just look for a justification to do what they want, and hope nobody notices or complains.
In any case, thanks go to you, NPE, and others for your continued work to share and expose this sort of scheme.