Friday, October 13, 2006

 

Anti-Government Group May Have Traded Donations for Favors

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) is back in the news, and the news isn't good. CAGW is the group that our own Ohio based Buckeye Institute worked with to produce a report documenting wasteful state spending.

A new report entitled Investigation of Jack Abramoff's Use of Tax-Exempt Organizations was just released by the Minority Staff of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee. The report was authorized by Republican committee chairman Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). The report documents how disgraced Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff used non-profit, tax exempt groups like CAGW to advance the interests of his corporate clients. The report documents how one Abramoff client, Magazine Publishers of America, contributed money to CAGW, and then CAGW published commentaries that were supportive of the magazine publisher's policy objectives.

Revelations like this one, and others, certainly call into question the integrity of CAGW and raise questions about any "research" or "reports" that they are connected with.

Independent Sector issued a statement in response to the report saying that "this kind of activity is inconsistent with accepted standards of practice by charitable organizations. The alleged abuse has the potential to undermine the public trust in charitable organizations as they work to improve lives and communities. "

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