Political Activities
In 2010, Ricketts led a campaign against special-interest earmarks and wasteful spending in the federal government. Ricketts founded an independent organization called Taxpayers Against Earmarks that classified every Member of Congress as either a spending “hero” or “hooligan.” The organization has been credited with convincing Members of Congress to adopt a moratorium on earmarks. Taxpayers Against Earmarks changed its name to Ending Spending in 2011.
Ricketts established and funded The Ending Spending Fund, a political action committee, in 2010. The Ending Spending Fund spent over $1 million sponsoring independent advertisements in several Congressional races. The goal of the advertising expenditure was to highlight incumbents’ earmark-related policies. The Ending Spending Fund spent the largest amount of its money on the United States Senate election in Nevada, 2010 in an effort to defeat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Although not required by law, Ricketts willingly disclosed his identity due to his belief in transparency.
Ricketts served on the board of trustees of the American Enterprise Institute from 1999-2007. His son is on the Republican National Committee. His daughter, Laura Ricketts, is a lesbian activist and prominent bundler for Obama.
On May 17, 2012, The New York Times published a story by Jeff Zeleny and Jim Rutenberg reporting that The Ending Spending Action fund had been presented with a 54-page proposal entitled, "The Defeat of Barack Hussein Obama: the Ricketts Plan to End His Spending for Good." According to the Times, the proposal, written by a vendor seeking to be hired by Ending Spending, suggested a $10-million ad campaign to "attack President Obama in ways that Republicans have so far shied away" and called for "running commercials linking Mr. Obama to incendiary comments by his former spiritual adviser, the Reverend Jeremiah A. Wright." The report came to light when an unidentified person, who was not connected to the proposal, leaked it to The New York Times. The president of the Ending Spending Action Fund said that the pitch was a "nonstarter" and issued the following statement repudiating the proposal: "Not only was this plan merely a proposal — one of several submitted to the Ending Spending Action Fund by third-party vendors — but it reflects an approach to politics that Mr. Ricketts rejects and it was never a plan to be accepted but only a suggestion for a direction to take."
Read more about this topic: Joe Ricketts
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