Soros Foundation Given $30 Million by US Government

This item is a few months old, but I was holding it in wait for the day some neosocialist challenged me to show that liberals were prime beneficiaries of tax payer grant dollars. Now, of course you can expect our neosoc friends to claim that somehow this and other leftie groups really are "mainstream" (isn't that the phrase they use to describe themselves?) but they'll tag anyone to the right of Josef Stalin as a "radical right wing Christian extremist" so go figure.

Soros
Foundation Given $30 Million by US Government -- 04/25/2005: "The Open Society Institute, a private foundation controlled by liberal billionaire and political activist George Soros, received more than $30 million from U.S. government agencies between 1998 and 2003. Last year, Soros donated at least $20 million of his own money to such liberal groups as Moveon.org, in a failed attempt to block the re-election of President George W. Bush.

Tax records the Open Society Institute (OSI) is required to file with the Internal
Revenue Service list "FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AGENCIES" as "Contributors" of amounts between $4.6 million and $8.9 million over a six year period:

1998 - $4,611,617
2000 - $4,934,678
2001 - $5,869,809
2002 - $6,138,125
2003 - $8,889,802

The amounts total $30,454,031. Records from 1999 and 2004 were not immediately available.
...
In an online document entitled Building Donor Partnerships, OSI explains how its various subsidiaries, called "national foundations," can get funding and other support from the governments in their home nations: public financing can be used to co-fund, expand or ensure sustainability of programs initiated by the national foundation.

When a government cannot provide funds, it can allocate land, use of facilities, media time or staff to a donor partnership.

Governments can waive or reduce taxes and duties for efforts of the Soros foundations.

Governments can publicize the programs or requests of the national foundation through official channels, often at no charge.

OSI has apparently applied this strategy in the U.S., as well. The foundation received 1.4 to 4.4 percent of its annual contributions between 1998 and 2003 from American taxpayer funding. Various State Department documents indicate that OSI has been paid to run what the department describes as "democratization programs" in a number of countries.
...
Ken Boehm, chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), told Cybercast News Service that any seemingly positive activities Soros-controlled groups engage in should be kept in perspective.

"Congress should keep in mind that this is the same organization that supports numerous hard-left radical activities in the United States and abroad," Boehm said. "The Open Society Institute gave $20,000 to the defense fund for Lynne Stewart, (who was) accused of working with the terrorists who planned the original World Trade Center attack."

Boehm said the numerous left of center political activities supported by OSI include "drug legalization efforts, pro-abortion policies and numerous other controversial causes." OSI tax records show contributions of:

$4.41 million to the American Civil Liberties Union and its state affiliates,

$500,000 to the Pro-Choice Education Project to launch a (pro-abortion rights) public education and media strategy

$100,000 to the Death Penalty Information
Center, an organization that works against capital punishment,

$100,000 to Catholics for a Free Choice, a religious group that advocates for abortion rights,

$100,000 to the Pennsylvania Coalition to Save Lives Now "to support needle exchange programs,"

$80,000 over three years to the Gay Straight Alliance Network, to promote "a traveling photo documentary exhibit by lesbian, gay, transgender, queer and questioning youth,"

$45,000 to the Democracy Matters Institute "to bring the campaign finance reform movement to college campuses,"

$50,000 to the Coalition for an International Criminal Court "to promote education, awareness and acceptance of the International Criminal Court," and

$35,000 to the Abortion Access Project.

Boehm also criticized taxpayer dollars going to the Soros-controlled
entity, because of the overt, partisan political activities Soros supports.

"George Soros also has been the'Daddy Warbucks' of numerous left-wing
political campaigns in the past year," Boehm said.

As Cybercast News Service previously reported, Soros pledged millions of dollars from his own estimated $7 billion personal fortune to the failed efforts to derail President Bush's re-election bid through various tax-exempt political action committees such as MoveOn.org. Boehm described the expenditures as "the height of hypocrisy.

"Soros has bankrolled the groups that have lobbied for limits on political giving and for disclosure," Boehm said. "But he apparently believes that the law should only apply to other people, and not to himself."