Susquehana Boys (Bala Billionaires) Are Still Political, But Keeping A Lower Profile
Not like it was in 2015 when they invested $millions in an unsuccessful mayoral campaign.
In December of 2015, Will Bunch wrote in the Inquirer that “the three Susquehana partners “invested $7 million or so in a political action committee to make state Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams the next mayor of Philadelphia.”
Bunch referred to a New York Times story that had this to say about Yass, “He may also have more than a passing interest in creating a political environment that undermines the I.R.S. Susquehanna is currently challenging a proposed I.R.S. determination that an affiliate of the firm effectively repatriated more than $375 million in income from subsidiaries located in Ireland and the Cayman Islands in 2007, activating a large tax liability.
(The affiliate brought the money back to the United States in later years and paid dividend taxes on it; the I.R.S. asserts that it should have paid the ordinary income tax rate, at a cost of tens of millions of dollars more.)
In June, Mr. Yass donated more than $2 million to three super PACs aligned with Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, who has called for taxing all income at a flat rate of 14.5 percent. That change in itself would save wealthy supporters like Mr. Yass millions of dollars.”
In March of 2015, Dave Davies, writing for WHYY.com, explained that, “the principals in a Bala Cynwyd-based securities trading firm called Susquehanna Group International are funding an independent effort to support state Sen. Anthony Williams for mayor, and they’ve begun with a TV ad buy worth over a half-million dollars. (You can see the ad here.) Referring to them as The Susquehana Boys, Davies described them as three very rich guys who are driven not by financial self-interest, but by an ideological commitment to school choice — charter schools and taxpayer-funded tuition vouchers for private and parochial schools.”
According to Davies, “The three men determined to see Williams become the next mayor are Jeff Yass, Arthur Dantchik and Joel Greenberg. Their firm has been around since the ’80s and now has 1,500 employees in seven offices around the country, as well as one in Dublin and four in Asia. Dantchik is on the board of the libertarian Cato Institute.
They made news in 2010 by funneling more than $5 million to Williams’ unsuccessful campaign for governor, but their political giving goes well beyond his ambitions. You can see dozens of their political contributions here, courtesy of the National Institute on Money in State Politics. (Those contributions don’t include the bulk of their funding of Williams’ gubernatorial campaign, which went through a political committee called the Students First PAC.)”
Greenberg, according to Davies, said “We are not in this to run charter schools, to manage charter schools. This is purely altruistic.We view this as helping kids have a choice who are trapped in failing, oftentimes violent schools.”
More recently (April 2020), Yass and his wife Janine pledged $2.6 million to the Jump-Start Philly Schools Fund, which is using the money to distribute laptops to Philadelphia area Catholic and Charter Schools.
Dantchik continues to serve on the board of The Institute for Justice, which describes itself on its website as an organization that “litigates to limit the size and scope of government power and to ensure that all Americans have the right to control their own destinies as free and responsible members of society.”
Greenberg and his wife Mary Gringlas are actively involved in a charity that provides emergency aid to Holocaust Survivors.
Of the three partners, Yass has been by far the most “generous” donor to political causes. Open Secrets ranks him 9th among the top 2020 donors to “Outside Spending Groups.
Lately, of the three partners, Yass has been by far the most “generous” donor to political causes. Open Secrets ranks him 9th among the top 2020 donors to “Outside Spending Groups.
It’s great to see rich people putting their money to good use.