Apparently it’s very, very profitable running political “non-profits” these days:
Right Wing News hired a researcher who spent more than a month researching 17 conservative PACs so we could do a special report. What we found was shocking.
* The bottom 10 performing PACs we researched spent $54,318,498 overall and yet only paid out $3,621,896 to candidates.
* Did you know that despite the fact that it raised a staggering 13 million dollars, The National Draft Ben Carson for President isn’t affiliated with Ben Carson and the small percentage of money they spent on independent expenditures didn’t go to him? Now you know why Ben Carson’s business manager, Armstrong Williams wouldn’t allow the group’s campaign director to take a picture with Carson and said, “People giving money think it’s going to Dr. Carson and it’s not. …Our hands are tied. We don’t want people exploited.”
* The Republican Mainstreet Partnership is getting an enormous amount of union money.
“Labor unions provided significant funding for the (Republican Main Street Partnership) with Working for Working Americans, the International Union of Operating Engineers, and the Laborers International Union of North America all contributing around $250,000. The United Transportation Union ($30,000), Seafarers International Union ($20,000), were joined by the Teamsters, Air Line Pilots Association, International Association of Firefighters, and various other unions who contributed $10,000. SEIU contributed $5,000, as did the Laborers Union, the Transport Workers Union and various others.”
In conclusion, “One of the things I realized while I was putting this report together is that perhaps the biggest reason grassroots candidates have been having trouble breaking through in recent years is because such a large percentage of the money that was intended for them is being siphoned off to vendors, wasted, and just plain old pocketed by people in these PACs.”
I’d like to be able to say that I was shocked, but I’m not even a little bit surprised. The only thing that is remarkable is the percentage of the skimming. That’s taking 93.3 percent off the top! They’re even worse than their sob-sister cousin charities; apparently fear-mongering is more profitable than tear-jerking.