Commenter Archie Mead points out something I didn't know about the discrepancy between Rep. Neil Abercrombie's description of an earmark and the description of what I believe is the same earmark in the House Appropriations Committee report:
Even with the name Abercrombie to connect the two entries, it's still very vague. Saddle Road, which connects the harbor to the inland Pohakuloa Training Area, location of war games for Iraq-bound troops and Stryker tanks, is located on the Big Island, while Schofield Barracks is located on Oahu, another island.
I doubt that Saddle Road will be running underwater ...
Continue readingLack of residential disclosure a problem for another member of Congress
Another reason why we need members of Congress to disclose information on their residences:
Rep. Robert Wexler is renting a home in his congressional district to quell criticism that his main residence is in the Washington suburbs.Wexler said in a statement Tuesday that he knew some constituents were concerned after he said last week he hadn't had a South Florida home in 11 years. Wexler, his wife and three children have a home in Potomac, Md. Wexler uses his in-laws' house in a Florida retirement community to meet residency requirements.
Not quite as dramatic as the Stevens case ...
Continue readingMore on Stevens’ earmarks
The Washington Post notes that Alaskans are fretting the potential fallout of the indictment of Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, for not disclosing more than $250,000 in gifts from VECO Corp. Taxpayers for Common Sense sums it up more succinctly:
Taxpayers for Common Sense has released the last four years of earmark data for Alaska to help create an understanding of how powerful Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) has remained as an appropriator. The new research has found that Senator Stevens has secured or played a significant role in securing more than 891 earmarks worth $3.2 billion, which comes to ...Continue reading
FedSpending.org updated
Our friend Adam Hughes of OMB Watch writes:
We released new data on FedSpending.org yesterday. We've now got a complete FY 2007 year for contracts, the first quarter of FY 2008, and a partial second quarter (everything for the second quarter except DoD, which isn't very much). There is also updated assistance data through the third quarter of FY 2007. Here's the release we sent out yesterday.
Adam adds: "We're planning another data update for the end of this year."
Continue readingHow confusing are earmark disclosures?
When Rep. Neil Abercrombie requested an earmark in the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations bill to fund "Saddle Road Phase 5," he listed (on page two of that mega file courtesy of Taxpayers for Common Sense), the "U.S. Army Garrison Hawaii, located at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii" as the entity that was the recipient of the funds. Search the spread sheet Taxpayers compile for the list of earmarks in that bill, and only one Abercrombie request turns up: a $9 million earmark for "Access Road, Ph 1" in Pohakuloa TA.
The only thing that connects the two is the ...
Continue readingPro Publica gets Stevens indictment online
It's available here. Looks mostly like it concerns omissions from Stevens' personal financial disclosure forms, though the big ticket item is Stevens' help for Veco Corporation allegedly in exchange for gifts. When Sunlight released our Fortune 535 project on the personal financial disclosures, we said, "...take what follows with a boulder-sized grain of salt: It's all based on information from the seriously flawed disclosure system used by members of Congress."
One question I have: A lot of the alleged malfeasance revolves around a Stevens personal residence, the Girdwood residence or, as Stevens called it, "the chalet." Obviously accepting ...
Continue readingTCS makes Milcon letters available
Last Friday, Taxpayers for Common Sense updates us on where the House is on the Appropriations process (a few weeks back the process could best be described as "nyah nyah nyah," and "I'm rubber and you're glue, whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you,", to use the parliamentary terms favored by most members of Congress).
In that update, they posted a link to their downloadable database of earmarks from the House version of the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations bill, they've also put the request letters online.
(This is what happens when you ...
Continue readingCurious Career of McCain Fundraiser
Last week, Talking Points Memo reported that one of John McCain's top fundraisers, Juan Carlos Benitez, has direct ties to Jack Abramoff, and now works with Cassidy & Associates, a Washington, D.C., lobbying firm. McCain's campaign listed Benitez as having raised between $50,000 to $100,000.
According to the lobbying forms filed with the Senate Office of Public Records Benitez is currently registered to lobby for the Iraqi Red Crescent Organization and lobbied on the Foreign Operations and Related Programs Appropriations Act of 2009 pushing for additional funding for Iraq. In 2008 he is also registered to ...
Continue reading$1,000 to the Jerry Lewis Portrait Committee
LD-203 forms--on which lobbyists disclose their contributions to lawmakers' campaigns, to presidential libraries, and to nonprofits honoring members of Congress, is available online. The disclosure that prompted the headline of this post is here. Lots of other interesting stuff, but there are a little less than 3,917 records in the entire database, which makes me think that the data isn't yet complete. There are also all the usual issues with inaccurate federal data -- here's a a $200,000 contribution to Sen. Barbara Boxer's leadership PAC. That's a bit more than the $5,000 FEC limit ...
Continue readingBirnbaum: Bank of America lobbyists wrote parts of bank bail out bill
Jeffrey Birnbaum, writing in the Washington Post, reports lobbyists wrote key portions of the mortgage bailout bill:
Credit Suisse, a large investment bank heavily invested in mortgage-backed securities, proposed allowing hundreds of thousands of homeowners to refinance their mortgages with lower-cost government-insured loans, relieving financial institutions of the troubled debt.After the bank proposed this to Congress in January, it became known as the "Credit Suisse plan" among congressional staffers and lobbyists. It later formed the basis of housing provisions in both the House and Senate.
Bank of America, which is acquiring Countrywide Financial, the country's largest mortgage lender ...
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