[SomeCallMeTim]

>They have to use actual facts.

If I understand the process, it DOES involve judgement of IRS agents. The IRS requires that applicants describe what social welfare activities they're going to take part in. If they didn't put something in that blank that was reasonable, then of course they weren't rubber stamped.

The Tea Party is pretty much all about reducing government size and spending and reducing taxes, with a few other standard conservative (guns, military) and libertarian (privacy, intrusive government) positions thrown in [1]; what could a "Tea Party" organization do that would promote the social welfare? Looking at teaparty.org, there's nothing in their set of 15 core beliefs that fall under "social welfare", [2] except arguably "Traditional family values are encouraged." Pretty much a stretch to expect 51% of their money to be spent "encouraging family values" and only 49% on politics.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_movement.

[2] http://www.teaparty.org/about-us/

[samolang]

They're not using the same definition of "social welfare" that you have in your head.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/501(c)_organization#501.28c.29.... http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/20...