NFIB's big business funding revealed again

Last July I had an opinion editorial in The Hill’s Congressional Blog entitled, “Big money behind misinformation on healthcare law”.  It talked about the revelations of big donor money flowing to the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) to fight against the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). 

According to a Public Campaign analysis of IRS 990 filings from the NFIB and NFIB Small Business Legal Center for 2009-2011, the NFIB organizations have had dramatic increases in contributions since the Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010. But the new-found wealth is not from dues of the average NFIB member. The IRS filings show that the NFIB organizations received $10 million from just 10 contributors in 2010-2011. In the previous year the largest individual contribution was just $21,000. News reports have identified the conservative and superpac Crossroads GPS as one of the NFIB contributors in 2010 giving $3.7 million.

The fact that the NFIB is just a front group for big business and partisan interests, a small business pretender organization I have called it, is well documented.  Yet much of the media amazingly still rushes to the NFIB for its position on small business issues. 

Hopefully the latest news about where the NFIB gets it funding will finally make the press wake up about this faux small-business organization.

The National Journal reported yesterday that the NFIB’s efforts to stop a new tax on health insurance companies that will help pay for implementation of Obamacare is being funded by the big insurance industry group America’s Health Insurance Plans to the tune of $850,000.

It took a lot of comparing tax filings by Chris Frates of the Journal to uncover the secret deal.

The back-channel spending shows how insurers were able to fund a key—and much more politically popular—ally in their fight against the premium tax. After all, helping small businesses is a political no-brainer while aiding big insurers is a political nonstarter.

Here is the bottom line.  The NFIB does not represent the interests of small businesses.  It represents the interests of its major funders….big corporations.

Small biz group outed

The political season is in full bloom and partisan ads are everywhere.  But here is a unique one.  Read the script of this radio commercial and guess which organization produced it.

The start of a new year can bring a sense of a fresh start, a new beginning.
But America’s small-business owners aren’t looking at January for a fresh start. They’re looking at November and Election Day.
They’re fed up with a president and some in Congress who don’t appreciate their sacrifices or the jobs they create.
They’re tired of federal regulators who punish them at every turn.
They’re sick of the assumption that they don’t care about their employees’ health and happiness.
And they’re weary of higher taxes and more red tape.
Small business has had enough of Washington’s class warfare.
It may be January, but these risk-takers -- who pay more than their fair share of taxes, struggle to create jobs and get no respect from their government  -- can’t wait for Election Day to arrive. 

Obviously this is a highly partisan ad targeting primarily the defeat of President Obama and like-minded Congressional Democrats using all the GOP buzz words.  So who is responsible for this radio ad? 

Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry?

How about one of the big super PACs supporting these presidential candidates?   Or was it the National Republican Party or the National Republican Congressional Committee?  Or how about one of the super PACs of those “independent” 527 organizations that work to get Republicans elected like Karl Rove’s American Crossroads?

If you guessed American Crossroads, you are almost correct.

This radio ad features the voice of Dan Danner, president and CEO of the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB).  It was produced and distributed this past Friday as that “nonpartisan” organization’s NFIB’s Small-Business Minute. 

I have expressed my feelings about the NFIB before.  I’ve called it a small-business pretender organization numerous times in my blog and have referred to it as a lapdog for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

But how did the NFIB go from never disagreeing with big business to overtly carrying the partisan water for corporate America to defeat the President?

Follow the money.

I always suspected that the NFIB was funded out of the same pockets that support big business organizations like the U.S. Chamber but didn’t have the proof.  Well, now I do and this is where Rove’s super PAC comes into play.

Fred Barnes, executive director of the conservative Weekly Standard and Fox News commentator, spilled the beans in a Wall Street Journal opinion editorial on December 28^th.  Barnes said that the GOP super PAC American Crossroads gave the NFIB $3.7 million in 2010.  Other conservative organizations also got big bucks for the same purpose—to get Republican candidates elected to Congress.   The plan worked in the midterm elections and those conservative organizations and more are getting additional money for this November from American Crossroads.

Now, some other business organizations do endorse candidates but typically based on membership consensus.  Others, like my own South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce, have opted only to provide members comparative information on candidates on specific issues.  Business organizations also receive contributions from outside interests to promote specific issues that are already part of their agendas.

But the NFIB has taken a different route altogether.  It has become a wholly owned subsidiary of
the big business and multinational corporation machine accepting huge sums of money and orders, explicit or implicit, to endorse and work for GOP candidates.

No longer can the media and public accept the NFIB as a national small business organization.  It can be seen now for what it really is—a highly partisan, political organization fronting for big business and multinational corporations to earn a buck—3.7 million bucks at least.