The Raymond Ruddy Effect: Conservative Catholic philanthropist funds attacks on Obama & PlannedParen

[Shallah Kali]

The Raymond Ruddy Effect: Conservative Catholic philanthropist funds attacks on Obama campaign and Planned Parenthood
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/10/13/112626/14/Dominionism_in_the_military/The_Raymond_Ruddy_Effect

However Ruddy's influence extends far beyond the paucity of Google hits and the few stories about him. The president of the Boston, Massachusetts-based Gerard Health Foundation and the Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of Maximus, Inc. -- the giant Reston, Virginia-based services provider that pioneered welfare privatization - has committed himself big time to election year politics, turning up the heat on Obama. He is also fronting a project aimed at damaging the effectiveness of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

Well-connected Ruddy funds BornAliveTruth ads attacking Obama

Ruddy has "close ties to the White House, federal health officials and Republican power brokers that date back to days as Texas governor," investigative reporter Mike Reynolds wrote in a May 2007 piece for The Nation titled "The Abstinence Gluttons." According to Reynolds, "Ruddy has leveraged his generous wallet and insider muscle to push an ultraconservative social agenda, enrich a preferred network of abstinence-only and antiabortion groups, boost profits for his company and line the pockets of his cronies--all with taxpayer dollars."

If it weren't for Ruddy's money, the anti-abortion group, BornAliveTruth.org, would not have been able to run television advertisements in several battleground states charging Obama with supporting infanticide. As the major donor to BornAliveTruth - a 527 that is allowed to raise money from individuals in unlimited amounts - Ruddy underwrote the organization's $338,000 ad buy in the battleground states of New Mexico and Ohio, Jill Stanek, the head of BornAliveTruth said in a recent telephone interview.

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Turning up the heat on Planned Parenthood

"Ray is a rare leader who puts his money where his heart is, and he did much to win George Bush his presidency," Manuel Miranda, the Chairman of the conservative Third Branch Conference, told me in asn e-mail interview. Although Miranda maintained that Ruddy's "small financial support to social conservative efforts is eclipsed by the applied wealth of George Soros and Hollywood," the former backer of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney also appears to be spearheading an effort - waged by a collection of Christian conservative organizations - aimed at putting Planned Parenthood out of business.

Much more in the article:
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/10/13/112626/14/Dominionism_in_the_military/The_Raymond_Ruddy_Effect

[Demeter]

1. Thanks for the Identification!

One by one, we find and disarm these fascists....with the Truth of their evil deeds.

[Shallah Kali]

2. The Nation: "The Abstinence Gluttons" on how abstinence only edu. is now a billion $$$$$$$ business

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070618/reynolds

Following the money swirling around Ruddy offers an eye-opening glimpse into the squalor at the heart of the abstinence-only project. One top Bush adviser left to take a job at Ruddy's charity, Gerard Health Foundation, and a senior officer at Ruddy's for-profit company, Maximus, left to take a top-level position at the Department of Health and Human Services. Leaders of Christian-right organizations that are Gerard grantees have gained advisory HHS positions--and their organizations have in turn received AIDS and abstinence grants to the tune of at least $25 million. Maximus itself has raked in more than $100 million in federal contracts during the Bush era.

As for Ruddy's abstinence-only policy, recent reports, including one contracted by Bush's HHS, show that after more than $1 billion has been poured into the enterprise, it simply doesn't work. Already nine states have opted out from federal funds for this faith-based boondoggle in favor of more comprehensive and effective programs of sex education for their youth.

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Raymond Ruddy sits on the board of Maximus, a giant government services provider in Reston, Virginia, that pioneered welfare privatization. As one securities analyst observed, "Maximus was in this segment before there was a segment." In 1995 Maximus was a $50 million-a-year enterprise. With passage of the Welfare Reform Act the following year, Maximus's earnings jumped to $105 million. Three years later its revenues tripled. Today it's a $700 million publicly traded global giant with more than 5,000 employees deployed across the nation and in Canada, Israel, Argentina and Egypt. It contracts with state governments to handle child-support collections, implement welfare-to-work and oversee managed care. For the Feds, Maximus handles collections on student loans and Medicaid appeals, manages the Social Security Ticket to Work program for the disabled and provides biometric "smart card" technology to the Secret Service, the Treasury, the IRS.

Ruddy joined Maximus in 1985 and went on to serve as its chairman of the board and as president of Maximus Consulting Group and its research division, the Center for Policy Studies and Surveys, which focuses on welfare and healthcare. Since 2001 he has also headed the Natick, Massachusetts-based Gerard Health Foundation, built on the $115 million retirement package he got from Maximus on resigning as chair in 2001 (he returned as vice chair in 2004) and still entirely funded by his and his wife Marilyn's charitable trust. Few outside the Bay State have heard of Gerard or Ruddy, even organizations that monitor the religious right. As Gerard secretary John Malloy put it in a phone conversation in which he refused an interview with Ruddy, "Ray's the man, but we like to keep him under the radar."