11.19.10
Cutting the plastic grass
In yesterday’s blog I attacked Paul J. Gessing’s Libertarian non-profit Rio Grande foundation for appearing to be an astroturf outfit with statistically zero members and tenuous ties to New Mexico.
I heard from Paul J Gessing via email today. He answered only two of my many questions. That is, he provided a pdf of the foundation’s 2009 990-EZ and he provided a link to a blog post that discusses some of Gessing’s writing that originally appeared in the Wall Street Journal.
First the tax form:
Form 990-EZ provides for a separate line item for revenue received from membership dues. RGF left this line blank. Unless I’m mistaken, that means they were not able to gain one single dues paying member from anywhere in the world, let alone a genuine New Mexican.
Of the roughly 250,000 RGF took in this year most was from out of state right-wing organizations. Here’s the list:
Donor’s Capital Fund, of Virginia, $122,500
State Policy Network, of Virginia, $30,000
Roe Foundation, of South Carolina, $15,000
Wal-Mart, of Arizona, $10,000
Atlas Foundation, of DC, $10,000
There were also two large New Mexico donors, both from Albuquerque;
Jeff Van Dyke, $12,000
Chris Baum, $5,540
So… if my math’s correct, that’s under nine percent of major donations from the state of New Mexico.
The other, roughly $53,300, monies that RGF took in are not delineated but let’s make a safe bet and guess that not much of that is from NM either (remember, no new membership dues were paid to RGF in 2009).
This is classic corporate astroturfing.
Perhaps I should get a few friends together, call it a foundation and get on local media, too.
After all, what’s Gessing Got that I don’t? Oh, yeah, three years shilling for Corporate power in Washington.
You know the saddest thing about all of this? The left is allowing the Libertarians to gain legitimacy because Democrats are not standing up for the little guy against government power (only one Democratic US Senator voted against the unAmerican PATRIOT ACT) and he was just voted out of office.
Gessing actually makes sense on some serious issues, like drug offenders and sunshine laws. What’s with New Mexico being one of only three states that doesn’t stream floor arguments in the state house?
When you let yourself slip into magical thinking and utopian vision you kinda feel, well, maybe a little ‘Libertarian’.
The “freedom and Prosperity” meme is powerful.
But then you realize the Libertarians are bent on handing all the power (corporations are people, money is speech) that the Federal Government now has to amoral, , oblique multi-national corporations.
As a follow up, the NTU confirms that Gessing headed up their lobbying efforts for a few years. So I guess that would make him an expert, of a sort.
