Families Over Billionaires — a left-wing political action group that assembled recently to undermine President Donald Trump’s proposed tax cuts — has its own ties to several billionaires.
Bill Gates, George Soros, the Ford Foundation, the Getty family foundation and the heirs of both Walmart and Kellogg’s cereal have all rolled out sizable grants to the group’s partner organizations.
Families Over Billionaires is a nonprofit led by an alliance of labor unions, Democratic elected officials, nonprofit advocacy groups and left-wing think tanks, primarily the Center for American Progress (CAP). Politico reported that the group’s efforts to fight Trump’s tax policies are backed by an eight-figure funding campaign.
One main collaborator is the lobbying arm of CAP, co-founded by left-wing billionaire George Soros. The recent Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient has donated over $5 million to the Center for American Progress Action Fund (CAP Action) through his Open Society Foundations, according to Foundation Directory records.
CAP, which bankrolls CAP Action, has a long history of billionaire funding as well. In just the past decade, the think tank has received $3.4 million from the Gates Foundation, $18.6 million from the Ford Foundation, $70,000 from the Ann & Gordon Getty Foundation and up to $2 million from the W.K. Kellog Foundation, the Pritzker Family Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation — the family heirs of the Walmart founder.
Leading the Families Over Billionaires campaign is Michael Linden, senior policy fellow at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, a liberal think tank. The Ford Foundation, started by Henry Ford and now headed by left-wing billionaire Darren Walker, has doled out $6.3 million in grants to the think tank in the last 10 years, according to Foundation Directory records.
Families Over Billionaires has also partnered with several left-wing nonprofits, including the National Education Association (NEA), Service Employees International Union, Unrig Our Economy and Fair Share America.
Unrig Our Economy has received $7.8 million from the Sixteen Thirty Fund, started by the left-wing dark money organization Arabella Advisors. Bill Gates’ foundation has given $456 million to Arabella Advisors since 2008, according to conservative think tank Capital Research Center.
Other key backers of the nonprofit include former Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Shalanda Young, former Democratic Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown and Democratic New York Rep. Pat Ryan.
Democratic Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren endorsed the group on social media, saying that she loves the name “Families Over Billionaires,” and that “it’s more important than ever for the voices of working people and of families to be heard.” Warren herself has opposed billionaires throughout her career, though she has accepted funding from more than 30 billionaires over the years, according to a New York Post review of campaign donations.
“It’s a useful political tool when they [groups like Families Over Billionaires] want to present themselves as being populist,” Tyler O’Neil, author of “The Woketopus: The Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government” and senior editor at The Daily Signal, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “The left likes to present these groups as representing the downtrodden … They want to say ‘we’re representing everyday people who would be hurt by the expansion of the Trump tax cuts.’ They don’t want to say, ‘George Soros opposes the expansion of the Trump tax cut.’”
Families Over Billionaires told Politico that its campaign will serve as a “centralized war room” to attack Trump and House Republicans over their goal to extend and expand the 2017 tax cuts that are set to expire at the end of 2025. Organizers said their campaign will include “advertising, rapid response and surrogate operations,” to counter Trump’s tax plan.
“Hardworking Americans are tired of billionaires and corporations getting massive tax cuts at the expense of everyone else,” the group wrote on its website, neglecting to mention Trump’s promises to lower taxes across the board.
“This will be the largest tax cut in history for middle-class, working Americans,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Feb. 6. She referred to a list of the administration’s “tax priorities,” which included eliminating tax breaks and loopholes for billionaires — specifically sports team owners and hedge fund managers.
Families Over Billionaires did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
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