"Dump The Incumbents Week" - Part 5

This will be the final part of our series, "Dump The Incumbents Week." As promised, today will focus on the wonderful material compiled by the folks at www.flipcongress2010.com. Today's perspective will be to focus on the numbers and how cheap it is for companies and other organizations to get a chunk of taxpayer money for very small contributions to a politician's re-election campaign.

To make the matter simple, I have devised a simple ratio to find out how well a contributor of campaign funds is doing relative to others doing the same thing. The ratio divides the dollar amount of the Federal earmark or program received by the contributor by the amount of money that the company or organization donated to the politician. For example, if Company ABC donated $2,000 to Congressman Smith's re-election campaign and the Congressman created a $1 million earmark for Company ABC, the ratio would have a value of 500 ($1,000,000/$2,000). Thus, for every $1 that Company ABC donated to Congressman Smith's campaign, the company theoretically got back $500 in value. The higher the ratio, the better bang for its buck that the contributing organization got back from the U.S. taxpayer.

Let's call this calculation the Payback Ratio. In going through the facts and figures at www.flipcongress2010.com, we find some interesting results, starting with the Senate:

• The largest Senate Payback Ratio was incurred by West Virginia Senator Murray. For only a $1,000 campaign contribution to the Senator's re-election campaign, Andrews Space, Inc. got $4 million in taxpayer money funneled to it by the Senator, yielding a Payback Ratio of 4,000, i.e. $4,000 in value for every $1 it donated. Another company, Dimension4, also did quite well with Senator Murray, their Payback Ratio was 1319, well above average.
• Doing almost as well as Andrews Space was Brush Wellman, Inc. whose $3,000 donation to Utah Senator Bennett resulted in a Payout Ratio of 3567. The tragic thing about this Payback ratio, besides the large size, is the fact that Brush Wellman is an Ohio company whose donation to a Utah Senator will unduly influence the next election in that state.
• The third runner-up in the highest Payback Ratio was from Louisiana Senator Vitter who earmarked $1.6 million for a company called Stratus in return for a paltry donation of only $500 resulting in a Payback Ratio of 3200.
• The fourth highest payback ratio was incurred by California Senator Boxer, who we discussed earlier this week. You may recall that she received a $1,000 donation from a local government entity and turned around to get that local government entity $2.4 million of Federal taxpayer money, producing a Payback Ratio of 2400. Think about this perversion of taxpayer money: a U.S. Senator accepts local taxpayer money to help her get re-elected and pays back that donation with millions of dollars of national taxpayer money.
• The worst value for the money was incurred by Microvision who got a Payback Ratio of only 50 from Washington Senator Cantwell. Still not a bad payback, $50 for every $1 donated.
• In total, 61% of the Senate Payback Ratios were under 500 but 24% of the ratios were over 1000.

The following Payback Ratio results were uncovered relative to the House Of Representatives:

• By far the biggest Payback Ratio winner in both the House and the Senate was a company named Saicwho who for only a $300 donation got an earmark from Virginia Congressman Moran worth $1.6 million, yielding a Payback Ratio of 5333, i.e. they got back over $5,000 for every dollar donated.
• Micro Assembly Technologies also did quite well with a Payback Ratio of 4,000 from Congressman Miller of California.
• We have discussed the lobbying firm PMA many times in this blog and they certainly are mentioned prominently by www.flipcongress3020.com. The interesting thing, however, is that while they have funneled money to many political re-election campaigns, their Payback Ratios are usually very low. In fact, they had the five lowest Payback Ratios that were calculated, all well under 100 and even their highest ratios did not exceed 300. This, obviously calls into question of how well they are lobbying if their clients get far less bang for their donation bucks. Consider Massachusetts Congressman Capuano's Payback Ratios. The ratio for the PMA clients was 52 but the two other Capuano Payback Ratios for Parametric Technology Corp. and ABT Associates were 571 and 640 respectively.
• As we discussed yesterday, Ohio Congresswoman Kaptur accepted donations from two companies that were not even in her district. Virginia companies American Systems Corp. and Impact Engineering incurred Payback ratios of 267 (not bad for American Systems) and 1143 (excellent for Impact Engineering). Conversely, Kaptur's Payback Ratio for PMA clients was 46, the lowest calculation of all ratios.
• The statistical distribution for all House calculations was about the same as the Senate. About 61% of the ratios were less than 500 but over 20% were over 1,000.

In reviewing all of the corruption, paybacks and other shady dealings of the current political class detailed in www.flipcongress2010.com, I found the following interesting, if depressing, behaviors:

• Congressman Berman of California wasted $84,000 of taxpayer money to develop and print a calendar with him as a focus that was sent to constituents.
• A number of Congressmen sponsored an amendment in the current House health care reform bill that allows drug companies to extend patent protection for their drugs. Why did they do that? Maybe because all of them received campaign donations from Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Allergan and other drug companies. Thus, for a few thousand dollars, the American citizenry gets to pay billions in higher prices for drugs for years to come.
• A Florida Congresswoman used $24,730 in taxpayer money to lease a Lexus for herself in 2008.
• Georgia Congressman Scott used Federal Congressional staff and assets to work on his re-election campaign.
• Indiana Congressman Visclosky earmarked $2.8 million of taxpayer money for two companies that donated to his campaign but who were not even located in Indiana.
• Mississippi Congressman Taylor funneled $8 million of U.S. taxpayer money to Rolls Royce, a European car company in exchange for a donation of $7,000.

I could go on but that would prolong the agony and depression. Bottom line is:

• The current political class can be bought and can be bought rather cheaply, exchanging million dollar earmarks for mere thousand dollar donations.
• Congressional elections are greatly influenced by donations from outside the Congressional district, warping the concept of fair representation of each citizen when it is overwhelmed by outside money, which also makes it next to impossible to unseat an incumbent.
• U.S. taxpayer money can be given to anyone who donates to a re-election campaign even if they are not an American company.
• Politicians will use their taxpayer money for just about anything including a Lexus rental (see above) and the purchasing of expensive cameras and televisions (see examples in www.flipcongress2010.com) without trepidation.
• The current system results in the American public paying much more for life whether it is for higher priced drugs (see above) or higher defense budgets for weapons systems that do not work or are unneeded (see www.flipcongress3020.com).

One more set of numbers from www.flipcongress2010.comn to really depress you:

• Of our current 100 Senators, 59% are lawyers by training, 4% are teachers by training, and 14% are career politicians or career workers in social service and community programs. These three categories total 77% of the Senate. In other words, 77% of the Senate has not been trained or likely had experience working in the private sector of the economy and thus, do not have any experience in making a payroll, running a company, balancing the needs of customers/employees/shareholders, raising capital, etc.
• In comparison to the general U.S. population, only 1% are lawyers, 6% are teachers, and 2% are career politicians or career workers in social service and community programs (9% total).
• In the House of Representatives, 38% are lawyers by training, 10% are teachers, and 18% are careers politicians and the such. In other words, 66% of the House has not been trained or likely had experience working in the private sector of the economy and thus, do not have any experience in making payroll, running a company, balancing the needs of customers/employees/shareholders, raising capital, etc.

Thus, the American political class has a profile that is radically different than the profile of the rest of the country. It is no wonder that it is so out of touch with the needs of the common American. That can change in November if we just "Dump The Incumbents" and get a Congress that is reflective of the values of the country and not the values of the American Bar Association membership.

Many of the principles discussed in changing out Congress and the current set of politicians are listed in the new book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom and Destroying The American Political Class." The book is available through our website at www.loathemygovernment.coom and online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.