four senators this spring refused to approve a $425 million package of federal grants for the Boys & Girls Clubs of America after staff members looked at the organization’s tax forms as part of a routine vetting process and were surprised to learn that the organization paid its chief executive almost $1 million in 2008 — $510,774 in salary and bonus and $477,817 in retirement and other benefits.
The Senators, which include Republicans Chuck Grassley and Tom Coburn (the article doesn't list the other two), apparently are worried that federal dollars are footing the bill for the nonprofit's salary largesse. Of course, nobody seems to be concerned that the taxpayers are footing the bill when defense contractor Raytheon (where 90% of its income, or $22 billion, comes from government contracts) pays its CEO $15 million a year, or that Lockheed (70% of revenue, or about $35 billion, from government contracts) paid its CEO $24 million.
Of course, to members of a party that likes to mock things like nonprofits or community organizing, presumably any idiot can run an organization like the Boys & Girls clubs, which oversees 4,000 clubs with 50,000 employees and $1.4 billion in revenue. Of course "[a] nearly $1 million salary and benefit package for a nonprofit executive is not only questionable on its face but also raises questions about how the organization manages its finances in other areas", as Coburn said about the Boys & Girls club. But in real, old-fashioned "private industry" like defense contracting, it's important to have somebody who makes $24 million, or about 25 times what the Boys & Girls Club pays, running the show. You'd never have any question about how defense contractors "manage their finances," especially when Raytheon and Lockheed combined for over $9 million in lobbying congress in the second half of 2009 alone...
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