The Daily Stat: Firms with Politically Conservative Bosses Pay More Tax

JULY 19, 2012

Firms with Politically Conservative Bosses Pay More Tax

U.S. companies with Republican-leaning top executives pay an average of $12 million, or about 2.2%, more tax annually than companies led by Democrats, according to research led by Dane Christensen of the University of Arizona and scheduled for presentation to the American Accounting Association. A conservative mind-set in the C-suite may discourage companies from pursuing risky or questionable strategies for avoiding taxes and thus may result in higher tax expenditures, the researchers suggest. Republican-leaning top executives outnumber their Democrat-leaning peers by about two to one.

Source: Conservative management trumps political ideology, as companies headed by Republicans pay more tax than those led by Democrats

[From Harvard Business Review's Daily Stat]

Heel-air-ee-us

DEAR MR JOHN BALI

NO, I WILL NOT "KINDLY OPEN THE ATTACHMENT FILE FOR MORE DETAILS"

(In response to:

From: MR JOHN BALI <johnbalizzz@rediff.com>
Date: 1 April 2011
Subject: PLEASE KINDLY OPEN THE ATTACHMENT FILE FOR MORE DETAILS
Attachment: FROM MR.JOHN BALI.doc <35KB>

)

Needy in Nevada

Having worked on the fundraising side of political campaigns, I've seen the importance of good lists. Lists of key supporters and donors, lists of potential donors, lists for the direct mail shop to send solicitations, etc. Once you're on a list, it's pretty hard to get off, and good lists are valuable. Campaign finance reform and other legislation makes the information about individual donors (who give more than $200/cycle) public. Between tapping public records information, or possibly being granted access to other candidate's lists, you can supplement what you already have. Needless to say, we've gotten letters from a variety of candidates, some of whom we've never given to nor signed up to support (but they got my name from somewhere...).

All that is to say, I received a letter today. A direct mail piece urging my quick action to help defeat Senator Harry Reid. To be honest, usually I just toss these right in the trash, but I hadn't received one from this candidate before so I thought I'd give it a read.

Now, I know direct mail pieces are always "urgent" and that I must "act now" to avert some disaster or help make sure the quarter ends with good fundraising numbers. And maybe I've ignored the text of past letters, but this one seemed particularly needy. Here's how it goes:

Dear [name],
If you're the Republican I've been told you are, then I need you to find your checkbook right now.

Translation: I got your name from someone else's list and I'm trying to get you to contribute via this piece of snail mail.

The letter continues [the bold is mine, the underlines and italics are from the letter]

... And I need your immediate financial support!
[...]
I need an emergency donation from you for ....
[...]
But I need your help immediately.
[...]
What I need are 1 million patriotic Americans who love this great country enought to give $25 to give Harry Reid the boot. I pray that you are one of them.

Oh, and don't forget the "sticky note" affixed to the front of the letter, printed in "handwriting" font:

I need your help to defeat Harry Reid.

I wonder if anyone has done a study of word usage in campaign fundraising direct mail solicitations. (1) Is there some science behind the number of "I needs" a letter should contain for maximum results? (2) Do political parties differ in their solicitation language (e.g., "I need" versus "Please show your support")? (3) Do people really believe the letters are as urgent as they claim to be?

And on a similar vein, (1) is direct mail fundraising effective in today's economy and/or digital age (i.e., is response suffering because most Americans have less disposable income, or is the barrier to donation [check or filling out a form with credit card information] prohibitive?), and (2) isn't the political fundraising "scene" about due a disruptive innovation of some sort?

</end random rant>

Just a year ago

I'm a little late in this post, but what's a few days, a few dollars, a few votes....

The Upside: THIS YEAR: Republican gubernatorial candidate, Bob McDonnell, won the other evening -- as Virginia shifts back into the red (that's a good thing in politics, bad thing in balance sheets). Republican candidates for Lt. Gov and Attorney General also won.

The Flipside: LAST YEAR: After spending the end of 2007 and most of 2008 working 70-80 hours a week, and spending a few weeks in the battleground state of Colorado organizing Get-Out-the-Vote (GOTV) efforts -- my work became mostly for naught as then-Senator Obama won the 2008 Presidential election.

One day I'll actually have to write up this experience. In short, it was the greatest, most fun, hardest, and wildest roller coaster of a job. I made a lot of great friends -- from fellow staffers to donors to volunteers to fundraisers -- and have lots of great memories.

Since I'm not about to start my novel about my participation in the 2008 election cycle tonight, I'll leave you with some random photos that I found from circa Election Day 2008.

The title of this post and of the Picasa album come from a song my great-grandpa used to sing a song that went something like this:

I remember, last December
Just a year ago -
I went to see a show...

I can't believe it's now more than a year since the walls came a'tumblin' down. Some things haven't changed -- I still had a Halloween, complete with a witch telling a story about a broomstick.

Long live Team Surge!

I voted

Elections 2009

NPP

[[UPDATE: I've posted here some of the Facebook discussions I found humorous from the other day. Feel free to add any comments to the original thread on the document, or start a new one!]]