Following the Money

One subject that has not been dealt with extensively is what effect the source of John Kerry's income might exert on his role as president. With some past candidates or presidents this would be less of an issue because they are not conditioned to a life of conspicuous consumption as is Kerry. Even a friendly media has chided him on this, mentioning a $8000 Serotta Ottrott bicycle, the $700,000 "Scaramouche," a 45-foot powerboat, the $35 million "Flying Squirrel," his private jet, the four multiple-million dollar (each) homes, and even the $1000 haircut. The "Kerryopoly" game has some fun with this, and has a handy quick reference chart of the above and more examples of Kerry's houshold spending, with sources.

Kerry manages all of this on his six-figure Senate income (in 2003 it amounted to $147,818, according to Byron York's research cited in "John Kerry's Bright Financial Picture"), with a little help from his billionaire heiress wife, Teresa. Following his examination of Kerry's 2003 income, York concludes:

Kerry's 2003 return illustrates the extent to which Kerry's lifestyle is subsidized by his wife. Apart from the income from the painting, Kerry's Senate salary would not be enough to pay the property taxes on the several residences they own.

John Kerry is not a low-maintenance husband.

That Teresa Heinz Kerry controls the household purse strings of necessity gives her a not insignificant power over John Kerry. That is not to say that we know that she actively employs that power, but we cannot ignore its existence when it applies to the man who would control the most powerful country in the world. A similar dynamic has not existed in the White House in recent history. While a lot was made of Hill & Bill, and Hillary certainly is a powerful woman whose influence was felt, this money dynamic was not an obvious issue in the Clinton White House.

It is an axiom of politics that the controller of the purse strings controls the ultimate power. Were Kerry to be elected as president, this suggests the possibility that he might be controlled by Teresa due to her control over his supply of money. The pay increase for the presidential job is not sufficiently higher to make up the rather large gap between the outlay which Kerry is accustomed to making to support his lifestyle and his own income. I think it is a fair assumption that his outlay will increase, which will at a minimum offset part of his increase in personal income, and probably exceed it, putting him even more dependent on Teresa's financial support.

Granted that Teresa, as controller of the Kerry household purse strings, might exert a significant degree of control over Kerry, what form might that control be expected to take? She has not released her tax returns, so we cannot examine all of the other uses to which she puts the Heinz fortune that she inherited upon the death of Senator Heinz, but we can see enough to detect a pattern. World Net Daily reported on February 23, 2004 [emphasis mine]:

One of heiress Teresa Heinz Kerry's favorite charities is the Tides Foundation, a 28-year-old grant-making institution that funds to the tune of hundreds of millions radical groups that, among other things, protest the U.S. invasion of Iraq, demand open U.S. borders, provide the legal defense of suspected terrorists and promote the spread of Islamist ideology in the U.S.

FrontPage Magazine offered an even more in depth examination of Teresa's contributions to Tides, and the causes to which the Tides group of organizations makes grants on February 13, 2004, in Ben Johnson's article, "Teresa Heinz Kerry: Bag Lady for the Radical Left" [emphasis mine]:

Teresa Heinz Kerry has financed the secretive Tides Foundation to the tune of more than $4 million over the years. The Tides Foundation, a “charity” established in 1976 by antiwar leftist activist Drummond Pike, distributes millions of dollars in grants every year to political organizations advocating far-Left causes. The Tides Foundation and its closely allied Tides Center, which was spun off from the Foundation in 1996 but run by Drummond Pike, distributed nearly $66 million in grants in 2002 alone. In all, Tides has distributed more than $300 million for the Left. These funds went to rabid antiwar demonstrators, anti-trade demonstrators, domestic Islamist organizations, pro-terrorists legal groups, environmentalists, abortion partisans, extremist homosexual activists and open borders advocates.

The article examines in great depth known grants by Tides to organizations with documented links to Islamic terorism, the remnants of global communism, and even the support of dictators such as Slobodan Milosevic and Kim Jong-Il.

The question voters must ask themselves is this: would Teresa, with this history of support for many causes that most of us believe represent clear anti-American movements, exert her power of the purse strings to control Kerry's decisionmaking in the same direction as her contributions? She is supporting hard left and extremist Islamic causes now with her money, is it a large step for her to continue doing so if she moves into the White House? Such a move would give her the potential for far more direct influence of national policy, is this what the American voters want?

I don't believe that most Americans want national policy to follow the money trail that Teresa has laid down with her contributions. We need to make that very plain in November.

Posted by dan at September 5, 2004 01:34 PM | TrackBack