Bridge Project today released a new report on the House and Senate committee chairs who are leveraging their leadership positions to peddle extreme policies, promote the Koch brothers’ agenda, and conduct partisan investigations.
Read more after the jump.CSE Was Created In 1984 By David Koch And Richard Fink. According to the New Yorker, “In 1984, David Koch and Richard Fink created yet another organization, and [President of FreedomWorks Matt] Kibbe joined them. The group, Citizens for a Sound Economy, seemed like a grassroots movement, but according to the Center for Public Integrity it was sponsored principally by the Kochs, who provided $7.9 million between 1986 and 1993.” [New Yorker, 8/30/10]
CSE Was “Principally” Sponsored By The Kochs, Who Gave $7.9 Million To The Group Between 1986 And 1993. According to the New Yorker, “The group, Citizens for a Sound Economy, seemed like a grassroots movement, but according to the Center for Public Integrity it was sponsored principally by the Kochs, who provided $7.9 million between 1986 and 1993.” [New Yorker, 8/30/10]
CSE Worked For Public Policy Changes That Would Result In “Lower Taxes” And “Less Government. According to an archived page of the CSE website, “The members of CSE are fighting hard to restore America’s freedoms and the values of our Founding Fathers. We work for public policy change that will result in lower taxes, less government, and more freedom.” [CSE.org via Archive.org, 12/3/03]
Read more after the jump.After he shut down the government last year, and derailed House Republicans’ attempt to pass a bill in response to the Mexico border crisis this summer, it’s evident that Senator Ted Cruz is responsible for pushing the GOP even further to the far right. His extreme-Conservative-or-nothing approach to governing is now driving the Republican agenda on critical issues like health care and immigration reform.
Just ask the Koch brothers’ political arm, Americans for Prosperity, who are so convinced of Cruz’s leadership that they’re hosting him twice this month. Tonight, Senator Cruz will be joining a phone “chat” with AFP’s president Tim Phillips, where “grassroots activists” can learn how they, too, can help grind the work of government to a halt. Later this month, Cruz is the headliner for an AFP summit that promises attendees the opportunity to hear from lawmakers “leading the charge against big government.”
Read more after the jump.Once a more moderate state amid the South’s sea of red, since 2010 North Carolina’s state legislature has pushed one of the most aggressive right-wing agendas in the country, advancing the interests of the Tea Party and big business at the expense of the middle class. Republicans in charge of the General Assembly have introduced legislation on a wide set of conservative priorities and managed to enact increasingly extreme policies. Republican lawmakers made it harder for minorities and students to vote, reduced a woman’s right to choose, opposed the minimum wage, slashed unemployment benefits, and gave tax cuts to the wealthy while raising them on the working class, small businesses, and seniors.
Republicans hold such power in North Carolina thanks to changes that began with the 2010 elections, when an influx of outside cash helped the GOP obtain control of both halves of the General Assembly for the first time in more than a century. Their majorities gave them power over once-a-decade redistricting, and with assistance from national groups and Republican operatives, they redrew North Carolina’s federal and state districts in a way that all but ensured Republican victories in 2012. In the next election cycle, the state’s new districts and some additional outside spending delivered to Republicans the governor’s mansion, a majority of the state’s U.S. House seats, and a supermajority in the state House to complement the one they had earned in the state Senate in 2010.
The GOP’s success in North Carolina wasn’t merely a mirror of the Tea Party wave that benefited Republicans across the nation in 2010; it was part of a strategy crafted on the national level and carried out with the cooperation of prominent conservative interest groups and donors, including the Koch brothers. Chief among these are the Republican State Leadership Committee, which planned and largely bankrolled a nationwide strategy to control redistricting; Americans for Prosperity, the Koch-backed group that made North Carolina a ‘model state’ for its political efforts; and the network of conservative North Carolina-focused super PACs and advocacy groups funded almost entirely by longtime political operative and Koch ally Art Pope. Using his personal, family, and business money, Pope created and sustains groups including the Civitas Institute, the John Locke Foundation, and Real Jobs NC, which collaborate on electoral strategy and public policy to advance conservative reforms.
Read more after the jump.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.
Read more after the jump.
California Future Fund for Free Markets is breaking the irony barrier with an ad supporting Proposition 32, which purports to ban special interest money from state politics. The ad criticizes “deals cut in the shadows,” but CFFFM is funded entirely by a single $4 million donation from a similarly shadowy Iowa group that does not disclose donors but has ties to the Koch brothers. This hypocrisy has substantive implications as well: Prop 32 claims to end special interest spending in California politics, but leaves gaping loopholes for the billionaires who are funding the effort while cracking down much more tightly on union political spending.
Read more after the jump.This week Senator Marco Rubio claimed that he is working with Ivanka Trump on a paid family leave plan, something long overdue and desperately needed by American working families. However, early reporting indicates that the plan is actually just an ability to draw from Social Security and is based on policies touted by the Independent Women’s Forum, a right-wing interest group with ties to the Koch brothers.
“Senator Rubio and Ivanka Trump’s proposal for a so-called ‘budget-neutral’ family leave plan is not paid family leave at all, but rather a cut to Social Security that will particularly hurt low-income women,” said Dawn Huckelbridge, director of American Bridge’s Women’s Rights Initiative. “Women already receive less in earnings and Social Security benefits than men and are more likely to experience poverty, including in retirement. This is not a comprehensive fix for working families, but another hollow proposal that does not serve the women […]
Read more after the jump.Just like on healthcare and jobs, Trump’s tax “plan” proves he is only out for himself – and that he’s lying about it
Totally contradicting the economic pledges that Donald Trump made to the American people last year, Trump is at it again today, this time selling a sham tax proposal that is nothing more than a windfall for himself and the rich. This follows a pattern for Trump; to date, each of his major initiatives have been rooted in an agenda will only further rig the American economy for rich Americans at everyone else’s expense – including the “forgotten men and women” he spoke of in his inaugural address.
It’s no surprise that Trump is disingenuously claiming his tax plan will have populist outcomes when it in fact won’t. Trump lies about everything and today is no different. His empty rhetoric, however, has already been discredited even before his speech begins, […]
Read more after the jump.It’s hard when you can see what’s wrong, but you can’t do anything to correct it. That’s how the Republican Party must feel about CPAC. As thousands of conservative Republicans arrive in Washington, DC for the three-day jamboree, the Republican Party will have to balance how to appease its right-wing base but still attract and win over women, immigrants, and the youth vote.
From the looks of CPAC’s agenda, panel discussions, and guest speakers, the GOP has waved the white flag.
Check out this list of speakers, panels, and activists who will have a mic at CPAC:
Women Don’t Vote for Anti-Choice, Anti-Equal Pay Agendas
James O’Keefe of Project Veritasand his Protégé-In-Crime David Daleiden of the Center for Medical Progress are sitting down together for an “inside the activists’ studio” session – presumably they’ll be providing tips on how to misleadingly doctor up videos to inspire a congressional investigation to undermine women’s health and defund Planned […]
Read more after the jump.Kevin McCarthy’s Rise In House GOP Leadership: A Story Of Missteps, Reversals & Out Of Touch Policy Positions
Today, ahead of the House Republican Caucus’ election for the next Speaker of the House, Bridge Project is releasing new research that reveals what’s hidden in Kevin McCarthy’s past. As McCarthy has risen from a member of the California State Assembly to House Republican leadership, his record and rhetoric have changed significantly.
Buried not-so-deep in McCarthy’s short political career are a series of gaffes, missteps, reversals, and policy positions that would sink most politicians. Read the research here, but first, a few highlights:
McCarthy referred to budget deficits as “cancer” and said said cuts that focused mostly on services to the poor and disabled were akin to a “painful” session of “chemo.”
In 2011 and 2014, McCarthy voted to raise the debt ceiling. Ahead of the 2014 vote, McCarthy organized a field trip to the Bureau of […]
Read more after the jump.
