Politicized, Progressive Big Philanthropy | RealClearPolicy
On the day Miller s article appeared, the Subcommittee on Oversight of the House Ways and Means Committee held a hearing on the how the growth of the tax-exempt sector is changing the U.S. political landscape. During the generally non-contentious proceeding, members and witnesses floated or endorsed several potential discrete changes to law and regulations on tax-exemption, foreign funding of exempt nonprofits, and the degree to which those groups and their also-exempt funders can engage in voter registration.
The proposed reforms included, among others, the following: (1) banning foreign contributions to tax-exempt nonprofits; (2) curbing contributions to political super PACs from social-welfare nonprofits that accept foreign contributions; (3) barring private foundations and public charities from funding and engaging in voter-registration projects; (4) banning private contributions to state- and local-government election administration; and (5) redesigning Internal Revenue Service Forms 990, including to request and then provide to the public more information about fiscally sponsored projects, and 990-PF.
Two days after Miller s article and the oversight subcommittee hearing at the other end of the U.S. Capitol, Sen. J. D. Vance, Republican of Ohio, introduced the College Endowment Accountability Act, which would increase the excise tax on endowment net investment income from 1.4 percent to 35% for secular, private, nonprofit colleges and universities with at least $10 billion in assets under management.
Big Philanthropy is big mostly because of its similarly large nonprofit endowments. Vance s bold bill would be a decidedly non-incremental policy step, and could serve as an opening bargaining position for future discussions about all such endowments tax treatment.
Oh my goodness. Vance’s bill will get Harvard et al.’s attention.
Most of all the bad and strange things happening in US society today are far less the product of big, profound, underlying changes, but top down social engineering ideas imposed from the top, financed by these big philanthropists.