LAT: Clinton rolls a sizable pork barrel

[ellisonz]

The senator embraces 'earmarks' as a way to help N.Y. She's received campaign funds from project beneficiaries.
By Tom Hamburger and Dan Morain, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
December 10, 2007

Since taking office in 2001, Clinton has delivered $500 million worth of earmarks that have specifically benefited 59 corporations. About 64% of those corporations provided funds to her campaigns through donations made by employees, executives, board members or lobbyists, a review by the Los Angeles Times shows.

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Clinton is not the biggest earmarker in Congress; senior congressional leaders and members of the appropriations committees can and do write many more such provisions into the huge spending bills they draft. But Clinton does significantly more earmarking than most others with her relatively low level of seniority.

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Her record stands in contrast with others in the Senate seeking the presidency, particularly John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.). McCain, who has long opposed earmarks, does not write them. Obama has used the device, but now declines to earmark funds for private companies; he uses earmarks only to secure funds for government projects such as road building and hospital construction. Other senators seeking the presidency provide earmarks to home-state constituents and collect donations from recipients of the federal largesse. But The Times review found that Clinton does it on a different scale.

For example, in the appropriations bills that have passed the Senate so far this year, Clinton earmarked 216 separate projects for a total of $236.6 million. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) secured $112.8 million; Obama earmarked $90.4 million, and Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) earmarked projects totaling $70.8 million.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-earmarks10dec10,1,2408915.story

Pay-to-Play Hillary!

:puke:

[Perry Logan]

1. "Obama earmarked $90.4 million." Just not as good at it as Hillary, huh?

By the way, I love your vomiting emoticon.

[ellisonz]

3. Read the article...

Democrats made earmark reform a priority when they took over Congress in January. The Senate passed rules making it easier to identify the authors of the once-secretive practice.

Clinton supported those basic reforms, but she and other Democratic senators running for president balked at a proposal by Obama that would have required members to disclose their proposed earmark requests, not just those that were enacted into law.

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With the exception of McCain, the presidential candidates who are members of the Senate all raised campaign funds from earmark beneficiaries, though none came close to Clinton. Obama, for example, received $10,000 from trustees of the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, for which he secured a federal grant.

But Obama also earned a reputation as a reformer, teaming up with the Senate's most vociferous earmark foe, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), to push legislation that would make earmark data more readily available to the public. And he currently declines to back any earmarks that benefit individual private companies, in part because he is concerned about the scandals that have linked legislative success with donations.

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Obama is clean as a whistle on earmarks.

[oasis]

2. So you're switching to Biden ?

:shrug:

[ellisonz]

4. ?

[MGKrebs]

5. Also from the article:

"From the beginning of her Senate career, Clinton saw earmarks... as a key to funneling aid to a depressed area and building political power among normally Republican-leaning voters."

"All told, Clinton has earmarked more than $2.3 billion in federal appropriations for projects in her state since her election to the Senate, much of it for public works projects funded in conjunction with fellow Democratic Sen. Charles E. Schumer and others in the New York congressional delegation."

Make of it what you will.

[OKNancy]

6. What I make of it is that she is a smart politician

and knows how to use the system. I wish my two senators would do some of the public works projects...but they are asshole Republicans.

[BootinUp]

8. If you are a newcomer in politics and aren't dirty yet, its a great standard attack strategy

been used by many.Speaking of this attack line.

The fact is that while the Republicans controlled the Senate and House, money was diverted to the Red States, and any success in reducing that was a victory for the Blue States.

[cuke]

11. I, for one, want to welcome our new earmarking overlord-ess

(paraphrasing Kent Brockman, of Springfield (state unknown))

[Kurovski]

22. I think the state is "America", as best I can tell.

We're told it's "easy" if we just follow the clues. :shrug:

Cartoons are hard for me.

[Czolgosz]

7. Clinton has delivered $500 million worth of earmarks that have specifically benefited 59 corporation

YUCK!

[BootinUp]

9. It would have been better

if you worked for one of them I am pretty sure.

[ellisonz]

10. And collected more than $1 million in contributions from those corporations...

[cuke]

12. And rejuvenated the economy of upstate NY, like she's supposed to do

I suppose you'd be happier if she just skipped doin her job in the Senate

[hedgehog]

14. Have you been in upstate New York lately? Building shopping malls

to replace factories shut down after NAFTA isn't my idea of rejuvenation! We're losing our young people. They get an excellent college education here and than move to other states to find work!

[hedgehog]

18. Anybody know where we can find the list of earmarks?

At least now we know why she didn't have time to read the NIE before approving Bush's war on Iraq!

[hedgehog]

13. Senator Clinton is using federal dollars to finance Destiny!?! Holy Shit!

I get the Syracuse paper and I never knew that! A little background:

The Carousal Mall was built by Robert Congel with various tax breaks from the City of Syracuse. About the time the property was going to go on the tax rolls, Congel decided to expand the mall. The contracts are very involved and I've never been able to follow all the ins and outs, but they boil down to this. Congel would either end up paying taxes to the City of Syracuse or he could start construction on the expansion of his mall and receive public funding. The Destiny proposal has undergone about 10 variations in the last 5 or 6 years, each proposal more extravagant than the last. At one time, it involved roofing over the main sewage plant for Onondaga County and placing a golf course on top. The current proposal would put Las Vegas to shame. An old tank farm was torn down in anticipation af the expansion, but so far the brown field has been left empty. While Destiny was being talked about, it sucked the life out of every other possible development or neighborhood rebuilding plan in Syracuse. A year or so ago, Congel made a move to seize twenty or so small commercial properties in the nearby town of Solvay using eminent domain, but that didn't pan out. Congel's "green" shopping mall would end up sucking the life out of every other shopping venue for 50 miles around. I live 30 miles away, and I have to drive into the Carousal MAll to see movies or go clothes shopping as it is. Kind of takes the "green" out of the mall when you have to drive there, I think.

Congel also has accumulated 5000 acres (Yes, 5000!) in nearby Wayne County and has built a hunting lodge there. (Some of the landholders sold out when Congel's employees kept "accidental" shooting at their houses.) He calls the place Savannah Dhu and wines and dines politicians, outfitting them for a day's fishing or hunting. LAtely, he's been trying to call the place an educational center so he can get it off the tax rolls.

http://blog.syracuse.com/news/2007/07/congel_dont_tax_resort_in_wayn.html

http://www.adn.com/news/politics/story/9447074p-9358614c.html

The Savannah Dhu web site - I suggest you protect your key board before clicking on the link:

http://www.savannahdhu.com


In short, Congel has been adroit at getting rich off public money. He's the kind of guy who gives developers a bad name. Somehow, although he himself is very rich, he can't afford to pay his contractors and he has put a lot of small outfits out of business. I personally know electrical and mechanical contractors who will not bid on a Congel project because he doesn't pay his bills.

Check out Wiki on Congel's Pyramid Company:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pyramid_Companies

[cuke]

15. What does this have to do with the thread?

It's not about Congel. The article you posted does not show Clinton doing anything wrong or questionable

[hedgehog]

16. HAnding money to a guy who is two steps ahead of the law isn't questionable?

Read the article from the OP. It makes very clear that Senator Clinton has been taking care of her friends and her friends have been taking care of her! And to think I used to have respect for Bob Kerrey!

[BeyondGeography]

17. What does she care if it's a harebrained idea hatched by a scammer?

The campaign money is in the bank.

[hedgehog]

19. $1 Billion dollars for an overgrown shopping mall!?!?!

http://www.destinyusa.com/


Syracuse has several companies manufacturing pharmeceuticals. Why couldn't she have rounded up a fraction of this money to build a state-of-the-art plant to manufacture flu vaccine?

[ellisonz]

21. We should call her Upscale Hillary!

[hedgehog]

kick because I think more people should read the LA Times article!

[hedgehog]

20. kick because I think more people should read the LA Times article!