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.
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.