A few months ago I did an interview with Jeff Sharlet, author of The Family. Jeff and I spoke about the C Street house and the involvement of certain Kansas elected officials, Sen. Sam Brownback and Rep. Todd Tiahrt, Sarah also did a piece about the involvement of Rep. Jerry Moran. Well months later more has come to the stage about C Street. The C Street house recently lost their tax exempt status that allows these Kansas lawmakers (and many others) to live there so cheaply
C Street was listed as a church to receive the tax exempt status, when talking to Jeff he told me that there is very little that is ever done involving religious work.
(Text from my interview with Jeff) The Bible is not the main purpose of the organization; never has been. You can look through 600 boxes of documents, they're public anyone can see them. Very few of them have to do with Bible study that is not what this group is designed to do. From the very first day when the formed the group in Seattle in 1935, it was because they wanted to break the bind of organized labor, they thought "The New Deal" was a devilish type of thing. So nineteen leading businessmen in Seattle got together and said we need one of us to run for office, and everyone else will put their money behind them. That's the kind of work they've always been doing. These "C Streeter's" travel around the world on "The Family" dime, doing lobbying work. A lot of times the Bible studies don't even involve the Bible. I wanted to ask Sen. Brownback about some of the Bible verses he uses to justify is position against homosexuality. When I asked him about it, he just looked at me with a blank stare. He didn't know what those verses were, he said Jesus had just laid it on his heart personally. Someone laid it on his heart, because when I interviewed his parent's back in Kansas they said they had no idea where he had gotten that from. So what you really see is these powerful guys getting together talking about their personal issues and political issues, someone may quote a word from the Bible sometimes but in the meetings I sat in on, I sat in on a meeting with Ed Meese, the Bible was never opened.
I'm sure Jeff is thrilled that his book has snowballed into the results that we see today, but what caused all this to happen? Why did C Street lose their tax exempt status? TPM reports:
Natalie Wilson, a spokeswoman for the Office of Tax and Revenue for Washington D.C., told TPMmuckraker that her office inspected the house this summer. "It was determined that portions of it were being rented out for private residential purposes," she said. As a result, the tax exempt status was partially revoked. Sixty-six percent of the value of the property is now subject to taxation. According to online records, the total taxable assessment is $1,834,500. The building's owner last month paid taxes of $1714.70 on the property.
So this makes me wonder: Where exactly will our Kansas lawmakers live now?
Well Sen. Brownback is hoping to move back to Kansas and set our state back for may years to come, but Rep. Tiahrt and Moran however are still fighting to be in DC, I guess depending on the outcome of their race one of them may choose to stay at C Street and cover the cost required to fuel a conservative cult with Kansas money while the other moves back or they both may be moving back home.
Hopefully Kansas chooses to elect someone who will represent the state and not the interests of the C Street family.
Originally posted at Forward Kansas