Today we will look at what it costs to buy favors from our current crop of Senators and Congressmen and women. As you will see, it does not take a whole lot. For a campaign donation of several thousand dollars you can usually get a taxpayer funded earmark worth hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions of dollars. Almost everyone benefits from the current deal: politicians get money and favors for their re-election campaigns or for their personal use and companies and lobbyists get money for their interests, clients, and firms. Only the taxpayer loses in the form of higher taxes and non-productive use of the current taxes collected. The examples below are only a SMALL subset of what goes on in Washington, the http://www.flipcongress2010.com/ website has details of shady practices on many more Washington politicians.
Georgia Senator Isakson - Arranged a $4 million earmark for Northrop Gruman in exchange for a $7,000 donation and arranged a $1.6 million earmark for Scientific Research Corp. in exchange for a $2,900 donation. (Source: Seattle Times)
Hawaiian Senator Inouye - Secured a $135 million taxpayer financed bailout after intervening on behalf of a poorly managed, non-qualifying bank. Why? Inouye had most of his net worth invested in that bank. (Source: Hawaii Free Press)
Illinois Senator Durbin - Arranged a $1.6 million earmark for Gentex in exchange for a $2,000 donation and arranged another $1.6 million earmark for Epir Technologies in exchange for a $2,700 donation. (Source: Seattle Times) Also, Durbin sold off $42,696 of mutual fund shares on Sept 19, 2008, immediately after a confidential briefing and legislative directive pertaining to the impending financial crisis and banking bailouts. By the end of the month and before the October market collapse, he had sold off $115,696. (Source: Washington Times)
Indiana Senator Bayh - Arranged for an earmark of $800,000 for General Atomic Technologies in exchange for a $1,000 donation and arranged an earmark of $800,000 to Briartek in exchange for a $2,500 donation. (Source: Seattle Times)
New York Senator Gill brand - Received ACORN's endorsement for her re-election, stating "I am honored to have the endorsement of ACORN and proud to partner with them on an agenda...". She then voted to funnel taxpayer money into ACORN even AFTER the videos surfaced showing a pattern of illegal and immoral activity within the ACORN organization. (Source: The Albany Project)
North Carolina Senator Burr - Arranged a $4.5 million earmark for General Dynamics in exchange for a $10,000 donation and arranged for a $2 million earmark for E. I. DuPont DeNamours in exchange for a $5,000 donation. (Source: Seattle Times)
Vermont Senator Leahy - Arranged for a $10 million earmark for General Dynamics in exchange for a $18,200 donation and arranged for a $1.6 million earmark for Goodrich in exchange for a $7,500 donation. (Source: Seattle Times)
California Congresswoman Sanchez - Sanchez paid three of her sister Loretta's Congressional staff members from her district's federal budget funds when Loretta's office was short on funds. (Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/). Sister Loretta arranged an earmark of $800,000 for Irvine Sensors in exchange for a $3,800 donation and arranged an earmark of $1.6 million for Digibeam Corp. in exchange for a donation of $3,800. (Source: Seattle Times) Still not done, the Congresswoman earmarked $3.2 million to PMA clients in exchange for a donation of $60,118. (Source: FreeRepublic.com)
Iowa Congressman Boswell - Boswell arranged an earmark of $3.5 Million for Goodrich Corp in exchange for a donation of $3000. (Source: Seattle Times)
Congressman Capuano - Arranged an earmark of $2.8 million for PMA clients in exchange for a donation of $54,000, arranged an earmark of $2 million for Parametric Technology in exchange for a donation of $3,500 and arranged an earmark for $800,000 for ABT Associates in exchange for a donation of $1,250. (Source: Seattle Times Favor Factory Investigation)
Massachusetts Congressman Frank - According to Judicial Watch, Frank allegedly used his influence to secure a $12 Million infusion for a hometown bank that did not qualify based upon TARP program legal criteria. Additionally, Frank was a knowing and key contributor according to Judicial Watch to the housing and financial crisis of 2008 through his dogged support of Fannie Mae risky loan practices, a company that funneled more than $40,000 to his campaign funds and a company where his life partner worked as an executive. (Source: www.businessandmedia.org.
Massachusetts Congressman Markey - According to www.TheHill.com, Markey requested federal regulatory investigations against a CEO and his company immediately after the man's testimony indicated that Markey's cap-and-trade bill would result in burdensome cost to citizens with little to no change or benefit in emissions.
New Jersey Congressman Pascrell - Arranged a $4 million earmark in exchange for a donation of $2,000. (Source: Seattle Times)
New Jersey Congressman Rothman - Arranged earmarks worth $3.2 for PMA clients in exchange for a donation of $4,000 and arranged an earmark of $4 million to ITT in exchange for a donation of $17,000. (Source: Seattle Times)
Ohio Congresswoman Kaptur - Kaptur doesn't even try to pretend she is helping her district. She arranges earmarks for donating companies from other states. The Seattle Times reports two such in Virginia. American Systems Corp and Impact Engineering each received generous taxpayer earmark gifts from Kaptur of $4 Million after donating $15,000 and $3500 respectively to Kaptur's re-election campaigns. According to www.FreeRepublic.com, Kaptur also involved herself in the PMA scandal by earmarking $1.6 Million for their clients after receipt of PMA lobbying donations of $34,500.
Ohio Congressman Turner - According to the Wall Street Journal, Turner spent $1435 of taxpayer dollars on a digital camera. Yes, small potatoes compared to others in the house but abuse is abuse.
Tennessee Congressman Wamp - Arranged an earmark of $2.8 million for PMA clients in exchange for a donation of $23,900 and arranged an earmark of $1.52 million for Radiance Technologies in exchange for a donation of $5,000. (Source: Seattle Times)
West Virginia Congressman Mollohan - According to NLPC, Mollohan appropriated well over $100,000,000 in taxpayer funds through earmarks for non-profits that he set up and staffed with friends.
A few observations:
- Tomorrow we will have some fun with the data and analyze who got the most for their money in this Let's Make A Deal! charade but it amazes me how much our politicians are willing to give up, of our taxpayer money, for just a few thousand dollars back for their re-election campaign. Of course, if the principles from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" were in play, none of this would happen since Step 6 would allow only individual American citizens to contribute to political campaigns and would bar lobbyists, companies, unions and PACs from contributing.
- The height of gall is people like Congresswoman Kaptur who is willing to grant earmark money to companies that have nothing to do with her Congressional district. Why should outside money be used to influence a local election? Only those people who live in a district should be allowed to contribute to a Congressional campaign, Step 7 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government."
- When the Republicans controlled Congress and the White House, they suffered serious political pain and some actual criminal convictions when they got entangled with lobbyist Jack Abramoff. More than once in the history of this blog, has the lobbying firm PMA been mentioned in additional to their heavy involvement with the above examples. Thus, different party, different lobbying firm but the same results: the American taxpayer gets screwed, proving my point that there really is not a major difference between the two major parties, they are all part of the same political class. I predict that many Democrats will eventually feel the same political and criminal heat of dealing with PMA that many Republicans felt by dealing with Abramoff.
- The impact of this kind of shenanigans goes much further than a few million dollar earmarks. It is public knowledge that the Democrats continually stonewalled the Bush administration's attempts to get Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac under control before the real estate market imploded. As mentioned above, Fannie Mae was a big contributor to Congressman Franks (and also to Democratic Senators Dodd and Obama), forestalling any attempts to get the housing lending industry under control. We all know what happened: housing collapsed and took the economy with it. Thus, we are not just wasting taxpayer money, we are endangering the economic health of the entire nation with these kinds of arrangements between politicians and companies.
There is no doubt in my mind that all incumbents need to be ousted in the fall and those that take their place be made aware of why they won and how quickly they could also be removed. To continue with the current set of Washington politicians is to stagnate and die a death of a thousand cuts, one earmark and misuse of government funds at a time.
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