Wednesday, June 14, 2017

Trump's Big CON: Charity Edition

"LIKE AUTUMN LEAVES, sponsored Cadillacs, Ferraris and Maseratis descend on the Trump National Golf Club in Westchester County, New York, in September for the Eric Trump Foundation golf invitational. Year after year, the formula is consistent: 18 holes of perfectly trimmed fairways with a dose of Trumpian tackiness, including Hooters waitresses and cigar spreads, followed by a clubhouse dinner, dates encouraged. The crowd leans toward real estate insiders, family friends and C-list celebrities, such as former baseball slugger Darryl Strawberry and reality housewife (and bankruptcy-fraud felon) Teresa Giudice.

The real star of the day is Eric Trump, the president's second son and now the co-head of the Trump Organization, who has hosted this event for ten years on behalf of the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis. He's done a ton of good: To date, he's directed more than $11 million there, the vast majority of it via this annual golf event. He has also helped raise another $5 million through events with other organizations.

The best part about all this, according to Eric Trump, is the charity's efficiency: Because he can get his family's golf course for free and have most of the other costs donated, virtually all the money contributed will go toward helping kids with cancer. "We get to use our assets 100% free of charge," Trump tells Forbes.

That's not the case. In reviewing filings from the Eric Trump Foundation and other charities, it's clear that the course wasn't free--that the Trump Organization received payments for its use, part of more than $1.2 million that has no documented recipients past the Trump Organization. Golf charity experts say the listed expenses defy any reasonable cost justification for a one-day golf tournament.

Additionally, the Donald J. Trump Foundation, which has come under previous scrutiny for self-dealing and advancing the interests of its namesake rather than those of charity, apparently used the Eric Trump Foundation to funnel $100,000 in donations into revenue for the Trump Organization.

And while donors to the Eric Trump Foundation were told their money was going to help sick kids, more than $500,000 was re-donated to other charities, many of which were connected to Trump family members or interests, including at least four groups that subsequently paid to hold golf tournaments at Trump courses.

All of this seems to defy federal tax rules and state laws that ban self-dealing and misleading donors. It also raises larger questions about the Trump family dynamics and whether Eric and his brother, Don Jr., can be truly independent of their father.

Especially since the person who specifically commanded that the for-profit Trump Organization start billing hundreds of thousands of dollars to the nonprofit Eric Trump Foundation, according to two people directly involved, was none other than the current president of the United States, Donald Trump."

Read Forbes, How Donald Trump Shifted Kids-Cancer Charity Money Into His Business.

Trump's Big CON: Pay No Attention to Those Budget Cuts to Worker Programs While The Great and Powerful Donald Sends His Beautiful Daughter to Distract You

"President Trump's proposed cuts to the country’s job-training programs could jeopardize the very [services that workers need for] upward mobility. . .

The president's budget proposal for 2018 called for slashing $2.5 billion from the Department of Labor's $9.6 billion budget, a reduction of about 21 percent, according to an analysis from the National Skills Coalition, a national worker advocacy group.

The budget calls for a 40 percent cut to the Labor Department’s Wagner-Peyser Employment Service, which supports about 14 million job seekers annually and last year helped nearly six million people find jobs.

The proposed reductions include a $1.3 billion cut to programs which operate under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, which Congress reauthorized in a bipartisan move three years ago.

Author Angela Hanks, associate director for workforce policy at the Center for American Progress, said the reduced funding to WIOA initiatives could lead to about 571,000 million adults and teenagers losing access to the job training opportunities in 2018. Those services include resume polishing, literacy lessons and employment placement."

Read the Washington Post, Ivanka Trump is hitting the road to boost workers. Her father wants to gut job-training programs.