IRS approved liberal groups while Tea Party in limbo <\/a><\/p>\nIn February 2010, the Champaign Tea Party in Illinois received
\napproval of its tax-exempt status from the IRS in 90 days, no questions
\nasked.<\/p>\n
That was the month before the Internal Revenue Service
\nstarted singling out Tea Party groups for special treatment. There
\nwouldn't be another Tea Party application approved for 27 months.<\/p>\n
In
\nthat time, the IRS approved perhaps dozens of applications from similar
\nliberal and progressive groups, a USA TODAY review of IRS data shows.<\/p>\n
As
\napplications from conservative groups sat in limbo, groups with
\nliberal-sounding names had their applications approved in as little as
\nnine months. With names including words like "Progress" or
\n"Progressive," the liberal groups applied for the same tax status and
\nwere engaged in the same kinds of activities as the conservative groups.
\nThey included:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Bus for Progress, a New Jersey non-profit that
\nuses a red, white and blue bus to "drive the progressive change."
\nAccording to its website, its mission includes "support (for)
\nprogressive politicians with the courage to serve the people's interests
\nand make tough choices." It got an IRS approval as a social welfare
\ngroup in April 2011.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Missourians Organizing for Reform and
\nEmpowerment says it fights against corporate welfare and for increasing
\nthe minimum wage. "It would be fair to say we're on the progressive end
\nof the spectrum," said executive director Jeff Ordower. He said the
\ngroup got tax-exempt status in September 2011 in just nine months after
\n"a pretty simple, straightforward process."<\/p>\n
\u2022
\nProgress Florida, granted tax-exempt status in January 2011, is lobbying
\nthe Florida Legislature to expand Medicaid under a provision of the
\nAffordable Care Act, one of President Obama's signature accomplishments.
\nThe group did not return phone calls. "We're busy fighting to build a
\nmore progressive Florida and cannot take your call right now," the
\ngroup's voice mail said.<\/p>\n
There's more. Hit the link – quite incredible. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In yesterday's paper. IRS approved liberal groups while Tea Party in limbo In February 2010, the Champaign Tea Party in Illinois received approval of its tax-exempt status from the IRS in 90 days, no questions asked. That was the month before the Internal Revenue Service started singling out Tea Party groups for special treatment. There […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2739"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2739\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8487,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2739\/revisions\/8487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}