George Bush's "Pay for Play" Legacy [View All]

[RepublicanElephant]

blasts from dubya's hypocritical past:

Bush crony Stephen Payne was caught on tape offering access to Dick Cheney and Condoleeza Rice in exchange for donations to the George W. Bush Presidential Library. True to the president's legacy, the Bush Library will be a $500 million partisan institute housed by Southern Methodist University and administered with tax dollars, but accountable only to the library foundation. The library is to be the Mother of All Think Tanks. It will reward the truly loyal Bushies with cushy jobs burnishing the legacy of George W. Bush.
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/workplace/92383/pay-to-play:_karl_rove_taking_lead_on_george_w._bush_presidential_library_/


The US Army Corps of Engineers and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) dispense a lot of these contracts. They smack of cronyism. The BBC has reported, “(M)any of the US firms which won lucrative Iraqi reconstruction contracts are major donors to President George W Bush’s political campaigns.” The Center for Public Integrity (CPI), claims that most of the contractors gave more money to Mr Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign than to any other campaign in the last 10 years. CPI’s report covers 70 companies and individuals who between them have won reconstruction contracts in Afghanistan and Iraq worth up to $8 billion. It reports that 60% of these donors employed people who have worked for previous US governments, members of Congress, or the US army.
http://agauchepress.com/?p=41


Companies awarded $8 billion in contracts to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan have been major campaign donors to President Bush, and their executives have had important political and military connections, according to a study released Thursday. The study of more than 70 U.S. companies and individual contractors turned up more than $500,000 in donations to the president's 2000 campaign, more than they gave collectively to any other politician over the past dozen years
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/10/30/iraq/main580998.shtml


For around $4,000, industry executives can play golf and have dinner with key congressional Republicans at a Phoenix resort today, then "help Congress write its to-do list" on air pollution and energy policy during the next three days. Unfortunately, this is not a joke, but an actual money-for-access transaction to take place at a golf resort in Phoenix, starting tomorrow. They also will hear top Bush administration officials talk about an upcoming rewrite of the federal Clean Air Act and the effect of energy policy on business interests. By the end of the week, "members of Congress, senior administration officials, Western governors' office representatives, miscellaneous policy experts and invited business leaders" will draft a "Top Ten to-do list for Congress" this year, according to a published agenda
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0107-01.htm