A Tea Party Fundraising Scam?

The numbers from Tea Party Express don’t look very promising:

$9.5 million raised, at a cost of $8 million, with less than $400,000 going to candidates.

What would you consider a charity that raised almost $10 million, but actually used less than 5% of that total on its mission and programs? By every reasonable definition, you’d have to consider it woefully ineffective, at best, a fraud, at worst.

Consider then that the Tea Party Express has raised just over $9.5 million between January 1, 2013 and June 30, 2014, but has spent barely $380,000 directly, or indirectly, to benefit the candidates they support. Also, as they spent more than they received, their cash-on-hand decreased by almost $350,000; from $848,000 on January 1, 2013 to $498,000 on June 30, 2014.

The direct costs for raising that $9.5 million were more than $8 million, or 85% of total receipts, with more than $3.6 million paid out to Tea Party Express founder, Sal Russo’s consulting firm Russo, Marsh and Associates.

I hope this isn’t a case of good people getting ripped off.