Tapped puts it this way, my way would be a little different:

The wealthy generally favor museums, universities, libraries, and other cultural insititutions in their philanthropy. In my view, high culture, and even beautification of the public space, is important. The Jackie Kennedy Onassis-championed renovation of New York’s Grand Central Terminal in the 1980s restored grandeur, safety, and a sense of pride to one of the city’s most important landmarks. And when I travel in Europe, I’m consistently struck by the fact that most of the magnificent public buildings we enjoy today were paid for by regressive, anti-democratic regimes whose values we now abhor. Yet from Michaelangelo, to the Impressionists, to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Western high culture has always been in thrall to the wealthy institutions and individuals who can pay for its production.

…

It seems that the richer an American is, the less likely they are to direct their philanthropy toward poor Americans: “Research shows that less than 10 percent of the money Americans give to charity addresses basic human needs, like sheltering the homeless, feeding the hungry and caring for the indigent sick, and that the wealthiest typically devote an even smaller portion of their giving to such causes than everyone else.”

This is a polite way of saying something that needs to be said plainly. “Other cultural institutions” now includes “think tanks” and other quasi-intellectual producers of public discourse and narrative. You’re giving them a taxbreak to pollute public discussions about policy in their favor.

The fact that the rich give a much needed slice of the academic pie is worth noting, don’t think university admins aren’t constantly thinking first and foremost how to please big donors. Which means not talking about those dirty poor people so much.

In either case, it’s important to remember that the wealthy doubly benefit, given our current system by which the gov’t loses 1 out of 3 taxdollars when it gives the wealthy this “redistribution” option. They not only control the mainstream press, but the supposed vanguard and main producer of “revolutionary” highbrow thought. When artists and thinkers have to suck rich cock like media people, it explains a lot of the lack of creativity in the intellectual and theoretical opposition.