美国国家公共电台 NPR Philanthropy In America Is Becoming 'Ideological Arms Race,' Author Says

 

LOURDES GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

When Forbes Magazine first ranked the 400 richest Americans back in 1982, there were 13 billionaires. On the latest list, every single person on the Forbes 400 is a billionaire. America's ultra rich - you know some of them - the Gates, the Kochs, the Waltons, Mercers, just to name a few - they're now donating their dollars like never before and reshaping public policy.

DAVID CALLAHAN: We're seeing just an escalating¹ ideological² arms race as more money pours in from wealthy donors⁴ across the spectrum⁵.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: That's David Callahan. He founded the website Inside Philanthropy, and he has a new book called "The Givers: Wealth, Power, And Philanthropy In A New Gilded⁶ Age."

CALLAHAN: You know, one wealthy donor³, Laura Arnold, told me that, you know, when you open the newspaper in the morning and you see things that you don't like, things that upset you, if you have a foundation, you can do something about it. You can try to solve the problem. You can take action and in a big way. Whereas most of us, we read the newspaper, we're upset. There's not much we can really do about it.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: So is there anything wrong with this? I mean, so there's people out there in the world who want to use their money for what they believe to be good causes. What could possibly be wrong with that?

CALLAHAN: This money, it's coming at a time when most Americans feel disenfranchised. Poll after poll shows that people feel the wealthy have too much power, and now through philanthropy, we're seeing the wealthy harnessing this kind of new form of power. And more and more public policy debates they look kind of like these sort of Greek gods throwing lightning bolts at each other, you know, billionaires on the left and the right as the rest of us watch from the sidelines.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: I want to talk a little bit about the political stripes, as you say, these gods throwing thunderbolts at each other. Who, in sheer dollars, gives more, conservative or liberals, and who's more effective with their money?

CALLAHAN: You know, there tends to be a kind of a-la-carte alarmism when it comes to philanthropy. The left likes to complain about the Koch brothers. The right likes to complain about George Soros. All this money is kind of troubling. And there is a lot of it on both sides. It's hard to say who gives more, the left or the right. But I think it's fair to say that the right has been more effective when it comes to shaping economic policy and fiscal⁷ policy. They have bankrolled these big think tanks in Washington that look to cut the size of government. The Heritage Foundation now playing a big role in the Trump⁸ administration has been financed over years by wealthy donors. The left, meanwhile, has had a lot of success when it comes to advancing social rights. You know, the LGBT rights movement in the last 15 years, I look at Tim Gill, one of the top philanthropists advancing LGBT rights, quite effective in terms of accelerating the move to marriage equality.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: One of the things that I found really interesting in this book when you talk about these mega donors is how they've been making so much money. Even over the last 10 years, you know, their fortunes have increased in the billions. And they put a lot of these profits into charitable foundations, which are essentially⁹ tax shelters, and then they use that money to influence policy. Is this an end run around the democratic system in your view?

CALLAHAN: (Laughter) I do think that it's troubling that so many tax deductible dollars now go to influence public policy. If I give a donation to a politician, that's not tax deductible. If I give a donation to a Washington think tank that whispers in the ear of that politician, I can get a tax break. You know, I can get a tax break for giving donations aimed at abolishing the food stamps program just like I might get a tax break for giving to my local, you know, food bank, right? So the IRS makes sort of few distinctions in what is tax deductible giving, and I think that's a problem.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: I guess a cynic would say this is how it's always been. I mean, we are in the new Gilded Age. Is it so different from the previous Gilded Age? Haven't powerful people always influenced the way that this country's run?

CALLAHAN: What's different now is there's more of these people. There's more wealth coming in. There's more billionaire donors with big ideas. There's more money that is trying to seek influence through philanthropy than ever before. And here's the thing - that's going to only get greater because government has been on the decline. We're seeing cuts to all sorts of government agencies that were happening well before Trump came along. As government steps back, private philanthropy steps forward and does so in a lot of different areas. Public education is a great example.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: I was about to ask you about public education because you give an example in the book about exactly how these philanthropists have influenced the debate on public education.

CALLAHAN: Yeah, we've seen just a huge influx¹⁰ of resources to create charter schools and to push more choice within our public school system. What people are maybe less familiar with is the role of Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation and ushering¹¹ in the Common Core. The Gates Foundation got behind the idea of the Common Core in a big way and more than any single actor in U.S. education really made the Common Core happen. That's an astonishing achievement for private philanthropy. You know, that a wealthy couple like Bill and Melinda Gates can, through giving a few hundred million dollars, shape what is being taught to students across the country really underscores the power of private philanthropy in this age in which we live.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: David Callahan - he's founder¹² of the website Inside Philanthropy, and he's the author of a new book called "The Givers: Wealth, Power, And Philanthropy In A New Gilded Age." Thanks so much for joining us.

CALLAHAN: Great to be here.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: And we should note, NPR is a recipient¹³ of Gates Foundation funding.

1 escalating   

v.（使）逐步升级( escalate的现在分词 )；（使）逐步扩大；（使）更高；（使）更大

参考例句：

• The cost of living is escalating. 生活费用在迅速上涨。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The cost of living is escalating in the country. 这个国家的生活费用在上涨。 来自辞典例句

2 ideological   

a.意识形态的

参考例句：

• He always tries to link his study with his ideological problems. 他总是把学习和自己的思想问题联系起来。
• He helped me enormously with advice on how to do ideological work. 他告诉我怎样做思想工作，对我有很大帮助。

3 donor   

n.捐献者；赠送人；(组织、器官等的)供体

参考例句：

• In these cases,the recipient usually takes care of the donor afterwards.在这类情况下，接受捐献者以后通常会照顾捐赠者。
• The Doctor transplanted the donor's heart to Mike's chest cavity.医生将捐赠者的心脏移植进麦克的胸腔。

4 donors   

n.捐赠者( donor的名词复数 )；献血者；捐血者；器官捐献者

参考例句：

• Please email us to be removed from our active list of blood donors. 假如你想把自己的名字从献血联系人名单中删去，请给我们发电子邮件。
• About half this amount comes from individual donors and bequests. 这笔钱大约有一半来自个人捐赠及遗赠。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 spectrum   

n.谱，光谱，频谱；范围，幅度，系列

参考例句：

• This is a kind of atomic spectrum.这是一种原子光谱。
• We have known much of the constitution of the solar spectrum.关于太阳光谱的构成，我们已了解不少。

6 gilded   

a.镀金的，富有的

参考例句：

• The golden light gilded the sea. 金色的阳光使大海如金子般闪闪发光。
• "Friends, they are only gilded disks of lead!" "朋友们，这只不过是些镀金的铅饼！ 来自英汉文学 - 败坏赫德莱堡

7 fiscal   

adj.财政的，会计的，国库的，国库岁入的

参考例句：

• The increase of taxation is an important fiscal policy.增税是一项重要的财政政策。
• The government has two basic strategies of fiscal policy available.政府有两个可行的财政政策基本战略。

8 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

9 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

10 influx   

n.流入，注入

参考例句：

• The country simply cannot absorb this influx of refugees.这个国家实在不能接纳这么多涌入的难民。
• Textile workers favoured protection because they feared an influx of cheap cloth.纺织工人拥护贸易保护措施，因为他们担心涌入廉价纺织品。

11 ushering   

v.引，领，陪同( usher的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• They were right where the coach-caller was swinging open a coach-door and ushering in two ladies. "他们走到外面时，叫马车的服务员正打开车门，请两位小姐上车。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹
• Immediately the two of them approached others, thanking them, ushering them out one by one. 他们俩马上走到其他人面前，向他们道谢，一个个送走了他们。 来自辞典例句

12 Founder   

n.创始者，缔造者

参考例句：

• He was extolled as the founder of their Florentine school.他被称颂为佛罗伦萨画派的鼻祖。
• According to the old tradition,Romulus was the founder of Rome.按照古老的传说，罗穆卢斯是古罗马的建国者。

13 recipient   

a.接受的,感受性强的 n.接受者,感受者,容器

参考例句：

• Please check that you have a valid email certificate for each recipient. 请检查是否对每个接收者都有有效的电子邮件证书。
• Colombia is the biggest U . S aid recipient in Latin America. 哥伦比亚是美国在拉丁美洲最大的援助对象。