A new lawsuit brought by right wing religious organizations could soon make political donations a tax-deductible item, which would lead to even more corporate money flowing into our election process. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: A new lawsuit brought by right wing religious organizations could soon make political donations a tax deductible item, which could lead to even more corporate money flowing into our election process. I gotta tell you, I like The Lever. I read The Lever just like you do. I think it’s a good source of information. But I read this story and they really miss something. Okay. He spends a lot of time talking about this 501(c)(3) transition, that you’ve got dark money folks that want to say we ought to make this tax deductible too because he focuses on the church. But what he misses is, and this is good, if you’re a Democrat, this is a great thing for you. The Democratic dark money is much more, right now, than the Democratic Republican money. So it’s kind of one of those things. Be careful what you ask for. The way this was handled, I thought was kind of one sided.
Farron Cousins: To be honest, I thought the exact same thing too, because this is not just a right wing issue. Yes, the lawsuit is being brought and funded by right wingers. But what’s even weirder here is it’s, yes, the churches, the religious groups are bringing it, but they’re not the ones funding it.
Mike Papantonio: Correct.
Farron Cousins: You have these big corporate big money donors that are funding this and they’re using the churches as their shield. So you have these churches that have now gone to the courts because they’re hoping to get it to the Supreme Court saying, listen, if we are not allowed to engage in politics, that’s a violation of our free speech rights. So they’re trying to make it a very simple First Amendment argument. And if we talk about politics, you strip us of our tax exempt status. So you’ve now empowered the IRS to limit our freedom of speech. That is their argument.
Mike Papantonio: Okay. You got problems with 501(c)(4) on its face, don’t you? The Supreme Court looked at it, Citizens United, and they said, this is a social welfare organization. They’re doing social welfare. This much, if if this is 501(c)(4), how it’s used, this much may be social welfare. The rest is political donations. And so right now the Democrats are dominating the dark money. There’s no question about it. I think that the chances of this really, if anything maybe it’ll give us a chance to take another look at Citizens United and say, no, there is no social welfare here. There’s no loss of freedom of expression or First Amendment rights. The look at the whole thing because it’s a mess right now. I was taking a look, Politico, I think the last cycle, they put this one organization, it’s called the Sixteen Thirty Fund. The Sixteen Thirty Fund had put $410 million into that Democratic run within about a month. I mean, the money comes in quick. It comes in quick. It comes in big. And the Republicans are saying, hell, we want to do the same thing. We want to expand our ability to raise money. And using 501(c)(3). I think it’s dead on arrival.
Farron Cousins: It should be because look, what these billionaires and corporations are trying to do is say, look, if we can get this to a point where it’s tax deductible, which is what the lawsuit’s all about, we can then deduct up to 60% against our income. So if my income is a hundred million dollars a year, I can write off $60 million of it by giving it and paying off and buying politicians. So that’s what they’re after here. And to me it’s a really weird timing of filing this lawsuit because obviously before it could go to the Supreme Court, which is where they will end up. It’s gonna take years. And years from now.
Mike Papantonio: Could be changed. Could be different.
Farron Cousins: Exactly. Especially if Harris wins because Clarence Thomas, uh, he’s kind of defying the laws of nature right now, still being around and on that court. So it’s only a matter of time before we start getting some vacancies.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. Don’t we look at every story like that, Farron? Don’t we always say, okay, this party wants this to happen right now. Okay. And it’s almost like they have an inability just to look 10 years down the road and say, if we change this that dramatically, we’re gonna be affected by it. And I think this is one of those stories. It’s the same kind of deal. I think if you, right now Democrats are way ahead on dark money, I don’t know where this is gonna go. I don’t think it puts anybody in any better position, but I don’t think it’s gonna pass at all. I don’t think they’re gonna go anywhere with 501(c)(3) change that gives them a tax benefit like that.
Farron Cousins: I really hope so.
