Conservative Transparency: A Look At The Organized Right In 2014

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In the last election, conservative outside groups spent more than $800 million attempting to defeat President Obama and secure Republican majorities in both houses of Congress. The unprecedented flood of cash failed to produce results on Election Day, but right-leaning donors and conservative groups have not given up on their efforts to obstruct progressive governance and implement a right-wing agenda.

Heading into the 2014 midterms, the network of well-funded organizations that comprise the “conservative movement” is larger than ever. Led by Charles and David Koch, the conservative donor class has increased its investment in the think tanks and advocacy groups charged with formulating conservative policy ideas and electing a government that will implement them. However, while the Koch brothers are well known to most political observers, it can be difficult to keep track of all the relevant players.

Bridge Project is committed to keeping a watchful eye on the conservative movement – and Conservative Transparency, an interactive database that tracks the flow of money on the right, is central to that mission. In addition to documenting the reported political contributions of major individual donors, Conservative Transparency uses the publicly available tax filings of conservative foundations and charities to provide hard-to-find information about the money behind think tanks and politically active nonprofits that do not have to disclose the sources of their funding.

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Hard Work, Unfair Pay: The Conservative Fight Against Increasing The Minimum Wage

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With the upper echelons of society taking home increasingly huge portions of the nation’s wealth, the country’s lowest-wage workers – the burger flippers and cashiers who are as integral to the American fabric as Wall Street’s CEOs – are increasingly being pushed into poverty by an economy that’s not working for them.

President Obama’s push to address this growing problem, in part by raising the minimum wage, is drawing the usual howls from conservatives eager to use his every policy initiative for political gain – even if it means trashing low-wage workers who have been left behind and misrepresenting the economic realities they face.

Congress’s failure to keep the minimum wage on par with inflation means that affected workers now take home pay lower than they did in 1968. Currently, full-time minimum-wage work is worth just over $15,000 a year, an amount too paltry to keep a family of four – or three, or even two – above the poverty line. But eroding take-home pay has less to do with workers’ actual value than an economy rigged in favor of those who command economic and political power.

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Till The Bill: How Conservatives Wrecked The Farm Bill Over Food Stamps

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With a compromise farm bill finally coming to the House floor, it is worth taking a moment to review why it took this long to get here – endless Republican obstruction.

As Sens. Mike Lee and Ted Cruz were taking the Republican war on health care reform to new extremes, forcing the government to shut down in the process, another political standoff defined by conservative radicalism received much less attention.

Last October, the farm bill expired, leaving uncertain the future of agricultural programs and essential food assistance for the poor. The expiration came after more than a year of intraparty squabbling among Republicans over the size of proposed cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) – commonly known as food stamps.

The House Agriculture Committee approved a five-year farm bill extension in July 2012, but congressional conservatives demanded major cuts to the food stamp program as ransom for their support. The debate carried over into the new Congress, where the Tea Party faction successfully blocked the bill from moving forward. Unable to satisfy the far right’s appetite for draconian cuts, Republican leaders eventually poisoned the process by severing the bill and passing “farm-only” legislation alongside a separate measure slashing funding for food stamps.

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GOP Union: Rep. McMorris Rodgers In Lockstep With Tea Party’s Sen. Lee

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Hoping to break the trend of awkward or forgettable State of the Union responses, Republicans have selected Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers to counter President Obama’s annual address tonight.

As a top lieutenant to Speaker John Boehner who generally steers clear of controversy, McMorris Rodgers could seem like a logical choice to try and represent the more welcoming GOP that party leaders called for after the 2012 election. However, a brief review of her record indicates that McMorris Rodgers is no less extreme than many of her Tea Party colleagues. In fact, on several key issues, McMorris Rodgers is closely aligned with Tea Party responder Sen. Mike Lee.

Both McMorris Rodgers and Lee oppose increases in the minimum wage, support deep cuts to food stamps, and have voted against unemployment benefits. McMorris Rodgers has opposed equal pay for women and supported several attempts to restrict women’s health care choices – including notorious legislation that would have redefined rape as “forcible rape” – while Lee believes the Violence Against Women Act is unconstitutional.

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Rubio Left Thirsting For New Ideas On Poverty

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Following a disastrous 2012 election cycle in which Mitt Romney infamously described 47 percent of voters as “dependent upon the government,” Republican leaders set out to make their party more appealing – or at least less insulting – to middle-class and working Americans.

Just weeks after the election, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) gave a speech on “middle-class opportunity” that was hailed as a sign of shifting conservative priorities and a more compassionate Republican Party. However, Rubio’s message did not translate into action, as he and his party spent the next year opposing middle-class tax cuts, pushing massive cuts to the safety net, and even shutting down the government in a futile attempt to undermine access to affordable health insurance.

Meanwhile, Rubio endorsed comprehensive immigration reform but failed to sell conservatives on a bipartisan bill and, after damaging his standing on the right, eventually dialed back his support. That failed leadership led one major Florida newspaper to dub Rubio the “political loser” of 2013, so it’s no surprise to see the senator delivering yet another highly publicized speech to give his image a boost.

It is almost unfathomable that Rubio is giving a speech on poverty just a day after voting against unemployment benefits. But his refusal to help the unemployed is actually emblematic of conservatives’ empty rhetoric on poverty. Until Rubio and the Republicans come up with any actual ideas beyond their endless calls for more tax cuts and repealing Obamacare, the real war on poverty in America remains their endless attacks on the middle and working class.

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Oversight GOP’s Hearing: “Obamacare’s Impact on Premiums and Provider Networks”

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While committee Republicans can be expected to blame premium increases and changes to provider networks on Obamacare, the truth is that health care costs and premiums were rising dramatically for years prior to the passage of the Affordable Care Act. Between 2000 and 2009, every Republican committee member saw premiums in his or her home state rise at a rate that far outpaced wages, with insurers sometimes spiking plans’ costs by as much as 50 percent in a single year.

Yet instead of supporting the health care law’s protections against insurance industry abuses – including the provision that requires insurers to spend at least 80 percent of premiums on actual medical care – congressional Republicans have pursued a extreme deregulatory agenda. In addition to their dozens of attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, the party has pushed to allow insurance sales across state lines, tried to exempt certain types of plans from state oversight, and even signed onto alternative plans that don’t include the prohibition against pre-existing condition discrimination. Incidentally, congressional Republicans – including many of Oversight Committee members participating in today’s hearing – have received tens of thousands of dollars from top health care industry PACs.

To make matters worse, the majority’s witness list is full of conservative operatives and anti-health care reform crusaders, including a Romney campaign adviser and the author of an ALEC model bill. The GOP’s mission to destroy health care reform and replace it with a “free-market” alternative that lets insurance companies run wild suggests the Oversight Committee’s hearing is likely to be little more than another excuse to publicize extreme anti-Obamacare GOP talking points as we roll towards the 2014 elections.

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GOP Budget Blues: How Conservative Policies Increase Inequality

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As congressional leaders from both parties negotiate over the federal budget, it is important to remember that many Republicans are similarly unsympathetic to the idea that addressing inequality should be a priority. Echoing Mitt Romney’s infamous “47 percent” remarks, congressional conservatives routinely blame the safety net for making people “dependent” on government, implying that low-income Americans remain at the bottom of the economic ladder by choice. For instance, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), the leading Republican voice on budget issues, has complained that “we’re going to a majority of takers versus makers in America.”

That attitude has been on display throughout the recovery from the massive recession that President Bush left behind, even as the wealthiest Americans recovered their losses and the income gap widened. In each of the past three years, Ryan has authored – and House Republicans have approved – extreme budget plans that shred the safety net while providing tax giveaways to the wealthy and big corporations. Republicans have repeatedly sabotaged bipartisan budget talks by demanding that working Americans shoulder the burden of deficit reduction while dismissing any proposal that requires the rich to pay their fair share. And, despite shamelessly citing the job losses that Obama inherited as evidence of his supposed failure, Republicans have been consistent in obstructing efforts to actually help the unemployed.

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House Of Hate: The GOP’s War On Equality

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Earlier this month, the Senate affirmed that all Americans deserve basic civil rights in the workplace regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity by passing the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.

Backed by a large majority of voters who believe it should be illegal to fire somebody because they are gay, 64 senators – including 10 Republicans – came together in support of the bill, which social conservatives have bitterly opposed since it was first introduced in the 1990s. Now, the only thing standing in the way of long-overdue protections for LGBT workers is House Speaker John Boehner, who has declared his opposition and signaled that he may not even allow a vote on it.

Boehner has justified his stance by falsely suggesting that any workplace discrimination is already illegal, but past statements by many members of his party reveal another factor at play: the homophobia and bigotry of extreme House Republicans. Among other ugly views, conservative House members have described homosexuality as “personal enslavement,” compared being gay to “somebody who has love for an animal,” and warned that LGBT rights are “a threat to the nation’s survival.”

The choice for Boehner is clear. He can listen to the American people and recognize that everybody deserves equal rights in the workplace, or he can acquiesce to the far right and turn the people’s House into a House of Hate.

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Rep. Steve King: “This Is The Homosexual Lobby Taking It Out On The Rest Of Society”

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In May 2010, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) justified anti-LGBT discrimination, saying:

And he said, ‘let me ask you a question.’ ‘Am I heterosexual or am I homosexual?’ And they looked him up and down, actually they should have know, but they said, ‘We don’t know.’ And he said, ‘Exactly, my point. If you don’t project it, if you don’t advertise it, how would anyone know to discriminate against you?’ And that’s at the basis of this. So if people wear their sexuality on their sleeve and then they want to bring litigation against someone that they would point their finger at and say ‘you discriminate.’ …This is the homosexual lobby taking it out on the rest of society and they are demanding affirmation for their lifestyle, that’s at the bottom of this.

Click here to read our report, House Of Hate: The GOP’s War On Equality
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Senate Finance Committee Republicans To Continue Cruz’s Crusade

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On Wednesday, the Senate Finance Committee is holding a hearing on the October launch of the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance exchanges. While the committee’s Republicans are expected to keep up their extreme, Ted Cruz-led attacks calling for the wholesale repeal of Obamacare, it’s worth remembering that a number of them sang a different tune during the problematic implementation of Medicare Part D in 2006.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), for example, now the Finance Committee’s ranking member, said of Medicare Part D in 2006 that “any program of that size and magnitude will have problems initially!” Hatch also commended a CMS administrator for doing a good job with “this very, very difficult to implement bill that we saddled you with.” And fellow Finance Committee member Mike Crapo (R-ID) argued in 2006 that glitches shouldn’t outweigh the benefits of positive public policy, saying of Medicare Part D that “we should not let these problems overshadow the fact that every day there are folks who are paying far less for their medications than they were before.”

But the similarities between the rollout problems facing the Affordable Care Act and Medicare Part D are unlikely to buy Obamacare any leeway from a Republican Party that has been bent on destroying health care reform from the outset. Like their counterparts in the House, who have voted nearly 50 times to repeal or defund the health care reform law, Senate Republicans have introduced dozens of bills designed to chip away at the law and repeatedly tried to use political tactics to undermine its viability. Yet the GOP’s blind devotion to sabotaging the health care law at any opportunity ignores the millions of Americans who would suffer if the legislation were repealed, including those with pre-existing conditions and seniors who fall into the prescription drug “donut hole.”

Wednesday’s hearing follows several similarly themed events held in recent weeks by other Senate and House committees, at which Republicans berated witnesses from CMS and HHS and used the opportunity to attack Obamacare as a whole. With the Finance Committee’s Ted Cruz-led Senate Republicans likely to pile on, it’s clear that the GOP’s real interest is partisan grandstanding, not fixing the glitches in the law.

Read more after the jump.