David Horowitz: Obama Is a Creature of the 'Left-Wing Money Machine'

Conservative activist and best-selling author David Horowitz tells Newsmax that left-wing foundations with billions in assets now comprise the “largest political machine ever put together.”

And Barack Obama is a “creature of this left-wing money machine,” he asserts in an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV.

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Horowitz is founder and president of the David Horowitz Freedom Center in Los Angeles, and founder of Students for Academic Freedom. His latest book is “The New Leviathan: How the Left-Wing Money-Machine Shapes American Politics and Threatens America’s Future,” co-written with Jacob Laksin.

Watch the exclusive video here.


Horowitz’s book maintains that contrary to what many believe, the right is not the party of the rich. Rather, progressive foundations now have some $100 billion in assets, more than 10 times the amount held by conservative foundations.

“And that’s the tip of the iceberg because the government unions, for example, put $400 million into the last presidential election, on top of the billions that these tax-exempt foundations have,” says Horowitz, a former radical leftist who converted to conservatism in the 1980s.

“The left has over the last 30-odd years taken over all of the major and venerable American foundations, with names that are icons of American capitalism. The Rockefeller Foundation, the Carnegie Foundation, the Ford Foundation in particular, but also the MacArthur Foundation, the Kellogg Foundation — I can list 100 of these left-wing foundations whose money comes from American corporations and American capitalists.

“These are all foundations that are now funding anti-capitalist, socialist, so-called progressive agendas. This is the largest political machine ever put together and it’s active not only in elections but in the whole area of policy, whether it’s the environment or borders or national security.

“But the foundations are under IRS rules, which means that their wings could be clipped if legislators for a moment thought about how this disenfranchises the vast majority of the American people.

“The Ford Foundation, for example, has $10 billion in assets, which it can deploy on policy areas like immigration, environment, healthcare and so forth. So the Ford Foundation has a much bigger voice than of course any individual in shaping the issues that shape America.”

This network of left-wing organizations paved the way for Barack Obama, Horowitz states.

“The network now faces the same challenges that Obama faces, that he has not governed well and his coalition behind him has eroded.

“Barack Obama was made by left-wing foundations. That’s where he got his jobs, that’s where the organizations like ACORN were initially funded.

“One of the sinister things about this network is that first it creates an organization like ACORN, and then it goes to the federal government to fund ACORN. So it gets the taxpayers’ money through the charitable so-called foundation and then through government legislation.

“Obama is very much a creature of what we have called the new leviathan, this left-wing money machine.”

Asked how Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney will fare in the face of this money machine, Horowitz responds: “Certainly the Republican will compete. But the really significant aspect of this network is the way it reshapes American policy and the American policy debate.

“For example, the radical move to the left on immigration policy is entirely the work of the Ford Foundations and littler foundations that follow in its path.
“That’s far more sinister than what happens in an election year, because you can lose an election but these foundations stay in the trenches and operate between the elections and reshape policy. They’re also funding journalists and funding lawyers. It just goes on and on. They are in every area of American life.”

As to what can be done to rein in the money machine, Horowitz says: “I think we need first of all some congressional hearings on the way in which these foundations disenfranchise ordinary voters, because they’re accountable to no one.

“Henry Ford was a conservative. Charles MacArthur, whose money runs the MacArthur Foundation, was a conservative. But the present boards and the present staff are very left wing.

“Congress needs to look into this situation. And then I think the tax laws should be revised to make the definition of politics not so narrow. When you are shaping the immigration debate, that’s political, even if you’re not funding a particular candidate.”

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Horowitz also offers his take on Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s victory in last week’s recall election.

“I think it was an historic election, for two reasons. One, it has definitely clipped the wings of the government unions, most importantly by stopping the government from collecting their dues and forcing people to join them.

“These are basically totalitarian organizations. The unions want to abolish the secret ballot in voting whether a plant should become unionized or not, and they want to have the government compel government workers to join the unions.

“The second really significant fact is the grass-roots nature of the conservative movement now. The tea party started this. Until the appearance of the tea party, conservatives never really had a grass-roots movement, let alone one that could compete with the massive organization at the grass roots of the left.
“So for me the Wisconsin election was a watershed in reaching out and involving so many conservative citizens who understand that their country is now at risk because of this juggernaut of the left. It’s going to have huge aftereffects.”