Monday, August 28, 2006

It's the Right that is beholden to Big Corporations, right?

Wrong.

NRO has this:

That’s not what David Hogberg and Sarah Haney found when they looked at the donation history of the charitable arms of Fortune 100 companies. Dividing the recipients between ideological left and right, they found that in the last tax year available (2004 in most cases), the left received a whopping $59 million compared to the right’s $4 million. Even taking aside Goldman Sachs’ huge $35 million gift to the mildly liberal Wildlife Conservation Society (which still demands taxpayer support of $5 million for its Bronx Zoo), the left still outpaced the right by 6 to 1. Hogberg and Haney comment:

If the Fortune 100 represents corporate America, then the belief that
corporate America is more generous to public interest and advocacy groups on the
right is clearly wrong. Unfortunately, that misperception is embedded in
American consciousness. How often are groups on the left derided as “corporate
lackeys”?

Will the pattern change? Corporate foundations could make a start by
better monitoring their matching grants. But real change requires that they
commit themselves to free-market principles that are the basis for the liberty
that lets enterprise grow and prosper. If corporations use their foundations to
stifle competition and buy off opponents, there is little hope that they will be
bulwarks of freedom—no matter what liberal commentators believe.

4 million compared to 59 million. Wow. That isn't even CLOSE. Now, which is the party of the rich again?