Are they doing so retroactively, or is this for 2018 campaign donations?
This opens the floodgates for massive, SECRET, reciprocal “donations” (payoffs) for their huge tax cut.
It also opens the floodgates for massive, SECRET, FOREIGN DONATIONS.
I’m sure the Saudi’s and Russians are quite happy now.
Gotta keep the river of dirty Russian money flowing.
“Of course we’re trying to rig the system to hide our misdeeds. Why do you ask, comrade? I mean friend?”
A life raft for the NRA?
Exactly!
Of course. Now that the NRA has been caught, they’re going to need to pour all that Russian dark money through a different channel.
My thoughts exactly.
Dear lord. ENOUGH with the dark money already.
If people are ashamed to be attached to donations, maybe they shouldn’t be making the donations.
How does hiding the identity of donors to political campaigns and their affiliated propaganda machines translate into “preserving government transparency?”
It makes the spies invisible.
That “money = Free Speech” is the most twisted, mendacious ruling I ever heard. Justice Roberts , and the judges who ruled with him should be tarred & feathered after being kicked off the Supreme Court. Physically kicked down the Supreme Court steps.
There should be no private money in US elections. Public (aka The People’s Money) financing ONLY.
Just another of many ways a minority party digs in when they have power. Cumulative effect is winding up in Trumpistan.
If a mega donor’s privacy is that important, there’s this thing called voting - it’s anonymous. Other, spend the money to set up LLCs that you can hide behind but at least give us the ability to fend off stuff like '16, not make us even more vulnerable.
For some years after Watergate, you could check off a box on your tax return to designate $1 to go towards public financing of Federal elections. It was made clear that the money didn’t come out of your pocket, but out of general Treasury funds. Gee, I wonder which party put the kibosh on that? The GOP is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Kochs, the Mercers, et al. Please stop voting for these crooks.
Yep. Plus, the idea that political speech can be secret speech is fucking silly. Political speech is speech in the public square. Bribes are what one does in secret.
I don’t get what the big deal is. It’s not like enemy foreign agents would infiltrate major political/lobbying organizations in order to funnel massive funds to GOP candidates. I mean seriously, take the tinfoil hats off.
It’s still there and the contribution to the Presidential Election Campaign fund has skyrocketed to $3.
To put things in context, in 2015 141,204,625 taxpayers filed returns. If they all contributed $3 it would be less than the Obama reelection campaign spent in 2012.
Yep. First thing that came to my mind, even before the Kochs and all the other garbage out there that has been given tax-exempt status.