I have been part of a nascent political awakening. It was the liberal response in Philadelphia to George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq. The people who opposed the war found each other first online and then in person. From there, we founded blogs and formed organizations. It was completely organic. We had no corporate money. We had no hidden donors. None of us, as far as I know, asked the IRS for 501(c)(4) tax-exempt status.
This is not what happened with the Tea Party. The Tea Party arose during the late summer of 2009, ostensibly in reaction to the stimulus but, in reality, more as an effort to defeat ObamaCare. On January 21st, 2010, the Supreme Court made its egregious ruling in the Citizens United case, and the IRS was immediately flooded with requests from Tea Party groups seeking 501(c)(4) tax-exempt status. I am sure that there was a lot of spontaneous and genuine political opposition to what the Obama administration and the Democrats were doing in Congress in 2009, but someone was behind this concerted effort to organize the opposition into tax-exempt groups. That doesn’t happen without resources and guidance. I don’t think it even occurred to any of us that we could pretend to be a social welfare group and raise money without being subject to taxation. That’s because we aren’t criminals.
I am infuriated by these stories about Tea Party groups who are complaining that seeking tax-exempt status was like having a proctology exam. While I acknowledge that the IRS made unreasonable requests and caused unreasonable delays, I am even more outraged that they did not deny tax-exempt status to even one Tea Party group. Not one.
There isn’t a single Tea Party group in the country that isn’t primarily concerned with political matters. None of them should have qualified for tax-exempt status. None.
If they have tax-exempt status then so, too, should Atrios and Chris Bowers and Susie Madrak, and any other Philly bloggers who founded or joined blogs to oppose the war. Opposing disastrous war serves the public welfare even better than opposing historically-low tax rates.
Where’s our refund?
