[StBernard] Boustany Leads Charge To Investigate AARP's Tax Status

[Westley Annis]

Boustany Leads Charge To Investigate AARP's Tax Status

Posted by: MacAoidh on Friday, April 1, 2011, 11:35

There was a hearing today at the House Ways and Means Oversight and Health
Subcommittees on a fairly touchy subject - namely, the organizational
structure and finances of AARP - one of the five largest lobbying groups in
Washington. A report released this week, "Behind the Veil: The AARP America
Doesn't Know," exposes the conflict between the organization's drive for
profits, the best interests of its members and its tax-exempt status.

Rep. Charles Boustany (R-Lafayette), who chairs the Oversight Subcommittee
at Ways and Means, laid out what's going on in his opening speech at the
hearing.

The back story behind the AARP probe is the fact that the organization,
which is supposed to lobby on behalf of senior citizens, backed Obamacare
despite its de-funding Medicare to the tune of $500 billion. One would have
expected AARP to fight tooth and nail to preserve Medicare funding, but one
would be wrong - the reason AARP did so was that the main victim of
Obamacare was Medicare Advantage, which is effectively eliminated. As such,
the Medigap insurance plans AARP sells now become essential; prior to
Obamacare those plans weren't really all that competitive.

It's a crooked, rent-seeking bargain AARP made with the Obama administration
and Democrats in Congress, and Boustany and two other congressmen -  Wally
Herger (R-CA) and Dave Reichert (R-WA) - are taking them on as a result.

Whether they can get a bill through the House to strip AARP of their
tax-exempt status at the end of this effort is a question. Whether they
could get one through the Senate and/or past the president's desk is an even
more dicey/impossible proposition.

But that having been said, AARP is dirty here and Boustany is right to at
least bring it to light. And if the effort ultimately forces AARP into an
unabashedly leftist stance rather than the faux-centrist one they play at
currently, that's progress. Because the vast majority of the people who pay
dues to AARP are not lefties and don't support Obamacare. So if action which
exposes that fact to the membership ultimately results in the diminution or
destruction of that organization as a dominant force in shaping policy
toward senior citizens, that's a good thing. Because reforming Social
Security and Medicare so that something will be available in 20 years for
the people who will be ready to retire then is going to depend on stopping
status-quo defenders from demagoguing the issue - and AARP's lobbyists and
ad execs are some of the worst offenders on that score.

http://thehayride.com/2011/04/boustany-leads-charge-to-investigate-aarps-tax
-status/