George Soros Group Behind Group Opposing North Dakota’s Measure 2

Because what we North Dakotans need is an out of state hit squad to tell us what to do:

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington, DC-based policy research organization, will hold a press briefing at the Doublewood Inn, Fargo, on Thursday, September 18, 2008 at 10:00 a.m. (CT) to discuss its new analysis of “Measure 2″, a proposal to dramatically change North Dakota’s income tax that will appear on the November ballot.
Nicholas Johnson, author of the Center’s report and director of its State Fiscal Project, will address the following questions:
* What is Measure 2′s impact on the state budget?
* Does Measure 2 address – or exacerbate – key problems in North Dakota’s tax system?
* How would Measure 2 affect education, infrastructure, and future tax cuts,
and what are the implications for North Dakota’s economy?
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities is a nonpartisan, non-profit policy research organization working at the federal and state levels on budget and tax policy, and public programs that affect low- and moderate-income families and individuals. It is based in Washington, DC.

So they claim to be non-partisan and coming in with an open mind. I’m sure that claim will be good enough for the states newspapers who will undoubtedly regurgitate their “analysis” on the front page of their newspapers. I’m sure the newspapers won’t put the effort to find out who these people actually are.
So in order to help them out I did a bit of research on just who these people are:

According to New York Times reporter Matt Bai, CBPP is one of three left wing think tanks funded by the Democracy Alliance. The other two are the Center for American Progress and the Economic Policy Institute. According to Bai’s account, representatives of CBPP and the other two Democracy Alliance-sponsored think tanks attended the May 2006 meeting of the Democracy Alliance at the Barton Creek Resort near Austin, Texas. Their role was to “talk about the agendas they were busy crafting that would catapult Democratic politics into the economic future.

But they said that they are non-partisan. And who is the Democracy Alliance?

The Democracy Alliance is a donors collaborative established by a group of liberal political activists, labor unions and donors. Its members have given away more than $100 million to date to liberal nonprofit groups.[1] The first official meeting of the group took place near Scottsdale, Arizona in April 2005 in an atmosphere described by New York Times reporter Matt Bai as “intense secrecy”
Prominent members include George Soros, Peter B. Lewis, Susie Tompkins Buell, trial lawyer Guy Saperstein, trial lawyer Fred Baron, movie director Rob Reiner, Norman Lear, Drummond Pike, Rob McKay, Rutt Bridges, Patricia Stryker, Rob Glaser, Rob Johnson, Anne Bartley, Jonathan Heller, Charles Rodgers, Gail Furman, Davidi Gilo, Rachel Pritzker Hunter and the Service Employees International Union.

So why in the world is this Soros funded group coming to North Dakota to tell us what to do with our surplus?
Remember this post on September 19th. I’ll bet you anything that the state media print these guy’s recommendations word for word without telling us what this group is really about or who’s behind them.
Note it looks like Rob and I were working on this story at the same time. Since we had slightly different takes on it we thought to have them both up.