Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Urban Institute Awarded Millions From Government Largess.



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Can you identify a “gay” hooker in New York City and try to understand his way of life?
If so, the federal government may have a half-million-dollar grant for you – if the federal payouts to a left-leaning government contractor are any indication.
The Urban Institute, the IRS’ “trusted partner” for small nonprofit organizations to publicly disclose their financial information, has been paid millions of taxpayer dollars to research various topics for the federal government – with subjects ranging from exploring the networking habits of Latino gangs and studying food distribution on Indian reservations to finding the best ways to stop girls in D.C. public housing from getting pregnant.
In fiscal year 2011, the left-leaning think tank was given a $499,925 Department of Justice grant for a project described as “Identifying and Understanding LGBTQ and YMSM [Young Men Who Have Sex with Men] Youth Engaged in the Commercial Sex Market in New York City.”
The organization was also awarded nearly $3 million in taxpayer funds to study “housing discrimination” against homosexuals.
The institute has been given other grants, contracts or task orders for research and work based on topics such as:
Urban Institute ties to the left
Earlier, WND broke the story that the IRS is officially directing all U.S. nonprofits whose annual gross receipts are $50,000 or less to file their annual financial information electronically with the liberal Urban Institute.
The institute collects what is known as Form 990, which provides the public with financial information about the organization. The form, called the e-Postcard in its electronic online format, is also utilized by the government to keep up-to-date with nonprofits and prevent such organizations from abusing their tax-exempt status.
WND also reported that the Urban Institute lists the National Council of La Raza as one of its “sponsors and partners.” In 2007, La Raza commissioned the Urban Institute to carry out a study of how the children of illegal aliens were impacted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids. The institute’s findings were released in a 109-page Oct. 31, 2007, report titled “Paying the Price: The Impact of Immigration Raids on America’s Children.” The cover of the full report featured an image of a terrified, crying Hispanic-looking girl.
The National Council of La Raza, or “The Race,” in advocates “comprehensive immigration reform,” calling for “the 12 million undocumented people in our country to come forward, obtain legal status, learn English, and assume the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.” La Raza has opposed legislation to make English the official language of the U.S.
The supposedly “nonpartisan” organization’s employees have a record of donating nearly 100 percent of their political contributions to Democrats, and officially, the Urban Institute advocates for totally socialized medicine, carbon taxes and amnesty for illegal aliens.
And UI’s president, Sarah Rosen Wartell, is the co-founder of the Center for American Progress, widely considered ground zero for the development of many of the Obama administration’s progressive policies.
A WND investigation of the donations and backgrounds of Urban Institute officers and trustees, found:
  • Freeman Hrabowski, vice chairman of the Urban Institute board of trustees, donated $5,000 to the Obama victory fund in 2008 and $1,000 to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. In 2012, he donated $5,000 to Obama’s victory fund. Since 2004, he has donated $21,900 – all to Democrat candidates.
  • Jamie S. Gorelick, vice chairman of the Urban Institute board of trustees, served as President Bill Clinton’s deputy attorney general from 1994 to 1997 and also as vice chairman of Fannie Mae from 1997 to 2003, the year Fannie Mae was accused of improper accounting after it showed $9 billion in unrecorded losses. Gorelick was paid more than $26 million as a top Fannie Mae executive before the mortgage giant received a taxpayer-funded bailout. Gorelick is also reportedly the official blamed for the pre-Sept. 11 “wall of separation” that prevented the CIA and FBI from comparing investigation notes. She was appointed by former Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., to serve on the 9-11 Commission. Since 2000, Gorelick has contributed at least $257,150 to Democrat candidates and leftist organizations – including $10,000 to Obama’s 2008 victory fund and $10,000 to his 2012 victory fund – and only $6,500 to Republicans. She is also a major donor to the Urban Institute.
  • Joel L. Fleishman, listed as the Urban Institute’s chairman of the Board of Trustees, gave $2,300 to Obama’s 2008 campaign. Since 2000, he has contributed $28,209 – all to Democrat candidates.
  • Robert D. Reischauer, listed as president of the Urban Institute in 2010, was a senior fellow of economic studies at the leftist think-tank the Brookings Institution in the late ’80s and ’90s. While he worked for the Urban Institute, he donated $2,000 to Democrat candidates.
  • Donald A. Baer, Urban Institute trustee, was a senior adviser to President Clinton from 1994-1998, including stints as director of strategic planning and communications and as chief speechwriter/director of speech writing and research. Baer has donated $4,750 to only Democrats since 2010.
  • Erskine B. Bowles, Urban Institute trustee, is former co-chair of President Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. Bowles is also a former member of the National Economic Council and National Security Council. He served as President Clinton’s chief of staff from 1996 to 1998 and deputy chief of staff from 1994 to 1995. Bowles has donated more than $8,000 to only Democrats since 2010.
  • Henry G. Cisneros, Urban Institute trustee, was Clinton’s secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development from 1993-97. Cisneros has donated $7,500 to only Democrats since 2010.
  • Marne L. Levine, Urban Institute trustee, is Facebook vice president of global public policy. Levine was chief of staff of Obama’s National Economic Council and special assistant to the president for economic policy. From 2001 to 2003, Levine served as chief of staff for Harvard University President Larry Summers, who served as deputy secretary of the treasury in the Clinton administration. Under President Clinton, she was deputy assistant treasury secretary for banking and finance. Levine has donated $3,000 to Democrats and $5,000 specifically to Obama since 2010.
Among other Urban Institute donors are the American Express Foundation, the Energy Foundation, the Fannie Mae Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the Soros-funded Open Society Institute.
The organization also receives huge amounts of federal dollars, getting nearly $55 million “during the last few years of the Clinton administration.” A 2011 filing by the organization revealed that its “government grants (contributions)” during that year totaled more than $44 million.
Wealth distribution, public health insurance
The Urban Institute is a liberal think tank that advocates for public health insurance, wealth distribution and tax hikes for higher income-earners.
The Urban Institute says it “gathers data, conducts research, evaluates programs, offers technical assistance overseas, and educates Americans on social and economic issues – to foster sound public policy and effective government.”
The organization has released dozens of extensive reports advocating redistribution through taxes. The “Tax Distribution and Economic Trends” section of its website provides links to many of those reports.
The group is a proponent of the Carbon Tax, which has been criticized as too heavily taxing the United States while distributing funds to the Third World.
The group was a critic of George W. Bush’s tax-cut plans, claiming they disproportionately favored “the wealthy.”
A May 2006 Urban Institute report argues for socialized medicine, concluding “public insurance appears to offer the best financial protection from high out-of-pocket expenses and financial burden for low-income families.”
An entire page at the Urban Institute’s website is dedicated to the IRS tea-party scandal, in which the agency was accused of targeting tea party-aligned groups with harsher scrutiny and holding up their applications. Urban Institute’s experts saw the tea party scandal as “small.”
Collects nonprofit data for IRS
The Urban Institute says it “gathers data, conducts research, evaluates programs, offers technical assistance overseas, and educates Americans on social and economic issues – to foster sound public policy and effective government.”
All nonprofits are required to fill out what is known as Form 990, which provides the public with financial information about the organization. The form is also utilized by the government to keep up-to-date with nonprofits and prevent such organizations from abusing their tax-exempt status.
Failure to complete Form 990s for three consecutive years automatically results in the loss of tax-exempt status.
The forms can be filed by larger organizations either electronically or by filling out and mailing a complete form manually. Most nonprofits whose annual gross receipts are $50,000 or less are required to electronically submit Form 990, which is also known as the e-Postcard.
In 2007, the IRS modified its Form 990, requiring more significant disclosures on corporate governance and boards of directors.
The IRS website directs all small nonprofits to fill out the electronic version of Form 990 at the Urban Institute’s website.
Reads the IRS website: “When you access the system, you will leave the IRS site and file the e-Postcard with the IRS through our trusted partner, Urban Institute.”
The Urban Institute’s partnership with the IRS goes back to 1997, when the nonprofit was contracted to digitize and help make the data associated with Form 990s more accessible to the public.
Also in 1997, the Urban Institute contracted with Philanthropic Research, Inc., which later renamed itself GuideStar, to digitize Form 990s.
Urban Institute spokesman Stu Kantor told WND, “IRS funding of approximately $1.14 million has been provided to the Urban Institute for this work since 2007. This amount represents less than a quarter of one percent (.24 percent) of our revenues during this period.” Kantor also noted that no confidential information is located on the 990-N e-Postcard the organization processes for the IRS.
He said, “The Urban Institute is a nonpartisan, nonprofit research organization. For more than 45 years, we have been conducting social and economic policy research, including evaluating government programs and providing technical assistance for government at all levels and for foundations.”
Soros, anti-gun funding
The organization is financed heavily by Soros’ Open Society.
Just last year, liberal billionaire Soros provided a $250,000 grant for “collecting data and conducting sophisticated empirical research and analysis on the impact of various proposals for housing finance reforms on low-income families, communities of color and underserved markets.”
Another Urban Institute donor is the Joyce Foundation, an anti-gun group where President Obama served on the board from 1994 to 2002.
Joyce gave a $400,000 grant to the controversial Media Matters progressive activist group in 2010, purportedly to “support a gun and public safety issue initiative.”
While Obama was on the Joyce Foundation board, the organization granted tens of millions of dollars to gun-control organizations. Also, numerous large grants were provided to a group called Leadership for Quality Education, which was run by John Ayers, the brother of Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers.
Also while Obama was at Joyce, the foundation gave numerous grants to the Small Schools workshop at the University of Chicago which was founded by Bill Ayers and is run by avowed communist activist Mike Klonsky, who served with Ayers in the Students for a Democratic Society.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/02/irs-trusted-partner-on-hunt-for-sex-workers/#eQKJ67ytbQgebTrC.99

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