Is this Fair?

I spent this evening completing our family’s tax returns. While completing them, I learned to my surprise that union dues are tax-deductible. Unions, however, work on political campaigns.

Why should institutions receiving tax-deductible donations be allowed to use the money to work on federal campaigns? Isn’t this corrupt?

The National Center for Public Policy Research is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt foundation. As a result, donations made to us are tax-deductible. As a further result, the National Center is not allowed to involve itself in political campaigns. (That’s why you never see discussions of the presidential race in this blog.)

Is it fair that one set of rules applies to us, and another to the AFL-CIO?

Perhaps we should investigate reorganizing ourselves; calling ourselves a union, and re-naming contibutions made to our work “dues.” There might be a way to do it, nice and legal.

Alternatively (because if it works for us it ought to work for every group out there), the country could stop forcing taxpayers to subsidize the AFL-CIO and the Teamsters and their ilk. It is bad enough that in many states it is legal for unions to force people who don’t want to to either join them or make payments in lieu of dues. The rest of us shouldn’t have to pay tribute as well.

Note: Just in case the fact that I learned about this issue while completing our tax returns misleads anyone, let me state for the record that no one in this family belongs to a union.



The National Center for Public Policy Research is a communications and research foundation supportive of a strong national defense and dedicated to providing free market solutions to today’s public policy problems. We believe that the principles of a free market, individual liberty and personal responsibility provide the greatest hope for meeting the challenges facing America in the 21st century.