I congratulate your contributing writer Rebekah Mercer on her timely report on the fraud that is rampant among charitable groups; especially those who play on our heartstrings with the promise to help our veterans — but don’t.
I take exception to one point made by Ms. Mercer. She wrote, “Most charities start with noble intentions.” Most of the 501(c)(3) organizations really are not effective charities at all, and they spend most of their time and effort raising money for themselves while adding very-little-to-no value to their supposed beneficiaries or the community at large. I ran local drives for the Combined Federal Campaign (which includes hundreds of listed nonprofits) at several military commands over the past 20 years. Even though charities listed in the CFC must submit to higher levels of scrutiny than those not listed, when one peels back the onion skin on many of those organizations, we find that they still spend a lot of money on themselves, with high executive-compensation packages and lavish fundraisers. In the final analysis, they do very little that actually helps veterans.
We need a national reform of our 501(c)(3) laws. The current laws allow too many groups, many of which are just political money-laundering organizations, to exist alongside legitimate charities. We should limit the 501(c)3 tax-exempt status to only those groups that directly provide food, clothing, shelter, or medical research and care (for the needy and for the benefit of all of society). All other groups, including the social services and various environment-action and labor groups, should be listed as the business entities that they really are and taxed accordingly.
—J. Tyler Ballance
