Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Americans for Prosperity" in English language version.
AFP – and the Kochs – are strong supporters of oil and gas development and strong opponents of regulation, especially environmental restrictions.
Americans for Prosperity Foundation (AFP) is an antitaxation advocacy group founded in 2004 and financed by David and Charles Koch, the billionaire brothers who own Koch Industries of Wichita, Kansas.
When faced with the charge that the Tea Party movement really represents only the interests of its generous benefactors, the Koch brothers, Tea Partiers like to cite George Soros, the billionaire currency speculator who has bankrolled political efforts for civil liberties generally. The easy equivalence is deceptive; it's hard to see how decriminalizing drugs, for example, serves Soros's business interests in the way relaxing environmental regulations supports the Kochs' businesses; the scope and scale of the Tea Party's dependence on large capital may indeed be unique.
Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, the central hub of the political empire of the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, reported raising $57.5 million in 2013 and disbursing $41.7 million to organizations in the Koch network.Freedom Partners, founded under the radar in 2011, emerged in 2012 as the main bank for Koch-related political operations.
David Koch was the top contributor, providing $850,000. But a number of major American companies also gave hundreds of thousands to the upstart conservative group. At the top of the corporate list is insurance giant State Farm, which gave $275,000, followed by much smaller donations from 1-800-Contacts, which gave $80,000, and Johnson & Johnson and Shaw Industries, which each gave $50,000.
The Koch brothers' flagship organization, Americans for Prosperity, had an equally stellar Election Day.
AFP is one of the most powerful political players in national conservative politics.
We're not dealing with any candidates, political parties, or ongoing races
But a donor list filed with the IRS labeled "not open for public inspection" from 2003, the year of AFP's first filing, lists David Koch as by far the single largest contributor to its foundation, donating $850,000...Following Koch on the AFP Foundation donor list are a number of corporations, including State Farm, which gave $275,000, 1-800-Contacts, which donated $80,000, and Johnson & Johnson and Shaw Industries, which each gave $50,000.
As the 2010 midterms approached, President Obama warned his supporters about groups with "harmless-sounding names like Americans for Prosperity." "They don't want you to know who the Americans for Prosperity are, because they're thinking about the next election," he said.
Americans for Prosperity, which spent more than $100 million in the 2014 election in efforts to help elect Republicans, is vowing to hold Republicans accountable now that they have control of both bodies of Congress. The group, financed largely by conservative entrepreneurs Charles and David Koch, promised Thursday at the National Press Club to expand its reach and influence in 2015 by pushing its core legislative policies of repealing the Affordable Care Act, rolling back energy regulations, expanding domestic energy production, reducing taxes and reining in government spending, especially Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid – all efforts that would financially benefit the Koch brothers' sprawling business entities.
The Koch family does show up as a major funder of another of the national Tea Party infrastructure, Americans for Prosperity.
The Koch brothers provided the seed money for Americans for Prosperity a decade ago – and more than $1 million overall.
'Five years ago my brother Charles and I provided the funds to start the Americans for Prosperity. And it's beyond my wildest dreams how the AFP has grown into this enormous organization,' David Koch said
AFPF is now Koch's primary political-advocacy group.
The Kochs hired Phillips in 2005 to make Americans for Prosperity into a force that could defeat liberalism and elect true free-market conservatives
They include 501(c)(4) "social welfare" organizations, like Crossroads, which has been the top spender on Senate races, and Americans for Prosperity, another pro-Republican group that has been the leader on the House side; 501(c)(5) labor unions, which have been supporting Democrats; and 501(c)(6) trade associations, like the United States Chamber of Commerce, which has been spending heavily in support of Republicans. Charities organized under Section 501(c)(3) are largely prohibited from political activity because they offer their donors tax deductibility....The elections commission could, theoretically, step in and rule that groups like Crossroads GPS should register as political committees, which would force them to disclose their donors.
"Given the record of this administration in using regulatory agencies like the I.R.S. in a retaliatory fashion, then it's understandable that there's concern about disclosure from a lot of individuals," said Tim Phillips, the president of Americans for Prosperity, a conservative organization that combines field efforts with large advertising campaigns.
Freedom Partners, as the group is now known, is playing a bigger role for the Kochs as the brothers seek a tighter rein over the advocacy groups and political organizations that their donor network finances and expand their involvement in Republican political causes.
The Kochs, with billions in holdings in energy, transportation and manufacturing, have a significant interest in seeing that future government regulation is limited.
In previous years, AFP has been the beneficiary of grants from CPPR, to the tune of $4.2 million
We're not dealing with any candidates, political parties or ongoing races," Hilgemann said. "We're just educating folks on the importance of the reforms.
The Koch brothers' main political arm intends to spend more than $125 million this year on an aggressive ground, air and data operation benefiting conservatives, according to a memo distributed to major donors and sources familiar with the group. The projected budget for Americans for Prosperity would be unprecedented for a private political group in a midterm, and would likely rival even the spending of the Republican and Democratic parties' congressional campaign arms.
In 2010, Obama called out Americans for Prosperity and similar groups for their spending activities without financial disclosure. "Right now all around this country there are groups with harmless-sounding names like Americans for Prosperity, who are running millions of dollars of ads against Democratic candidates all across the country," Obama said at an Aug. 2010 fundraiser. "And they don't have to say who exactly the Americans for Prosperity are," he added. "You don't know if it's a foreign-controlled corporation. You don't know if it's a big oil company, or a big bank. You don't know if it's a insurance company that wants to see some of the provisions in health reform repealed because it's good for their bottom line, even if it's not good for the American people."
The group, Freedom Partners, and its president, Marc Short, serve as an outlet for the ideas and funds of the mysterious Koch brothers
Two conservative nonprofits, Crossroads GPS and Americans for Prosperity, have poured almost $60 million into TV ads to influence the presidential race so far, outgunning all super PACs put together, new spending estimates show.
Americans for Prosperity, the grassroots organizing group founded by billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch, spent $125 million in the midterm elections last year. Now, they're calling in their chips. At the National Press Club yesterday, AFP president Tim Phillips and several officers with the group laid out their agenda. The group is calling for legalizing crude oil exports, a repeal of the estate tax, approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, blocking any hike in the gas tax, a tax holiday on corporate profits earned overseas, blocking the EPA's new rules on carbon emissions from coal-burning power plants, and a repeal of the Affordable Care Act, along with a specific focus on the medical device tax. The announcement was touted by NPR as a "conservative agenda for Congress." But it's also a near mirror image of Koch Industries' lobbying agenda. Koch Industries – the petrochemical, manufacturing and commodity speculating conglomerate owned by David and Charles – is not only a financier of political campaigns, but leads one of the most active lobbying teams in Washington, a big part of why the company has been such a financial success.
Classified a non-profit "social welfare" organisation, AFP is legally obliged to project itself as a non-partisan campaign that neither endorses nor opposes candidates for public office.
Charles Koch is a director at the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation, which is a major benefactor of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation. According to IRS documents, the Lambe foundation gave a total of just over $3.17 million in grants to the Americans for Prosperity Foundation from 2005 to 2007 to cover general operating costs.
Fresh off big primary wins, national tea party groups are refocusing their energy on November. A guide to five groups that influence the movement
AFP's previous president, Nancy Pfotenhauer, left to become an adviser to Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) presidential bid. (Pfotenhauer had previously worked as a lobbyist for Koch Industries.)
One of the largest of these independent conservative groups, an organization called Americans for Prosperity, will launch next week what is perhaps the biggest attack on Mr. Obama so far in the 2012 election campaign. Beginning Monday, Americans for Prosperity will air ads criticizing the president's handling of Solyndra, the solar-energy firm that went bankrupt after receiving grants from the government.
