80% of Energy Department's "Green Loan" Program Went to Obama's Backers

80% of Energy Department's "Green Loan" Program Went to Obama's Backers


“...These programs might be the greatest—and most expensive—example of crony capitalism in American history.  Tens of billions of dollars went to firms controlled or owned by fundraisers, bundlers, and political allies, many of whom—surprise!—are now raising money for Obama again...”


By Dell Hill

The federal government has no money of it’s own.

Every dime that the federal government distributes comes from the people via taxes and fees.  All the more reason to seriously question what’s known as “crony capitalism” inside the Beltway.

There’s a new book out entitled “Throw Them All Out,” and I think it would be very worth you time to absorb.  It was written by Peter Schweizer. I’ve read the reviews and several excerpts from this work and it’s certainly an eye-opener.

Doug Ross @ Journal give us his review.

    Schweizer's New Book: 80% of Energy Department's "Green Loan" Program Went to Obama's Backers

   
Peter Schweizer's new book has received attention from across the political spectrum, including law enforcement.  Even 60 Minutes reportedly leveraged the book to shine a spotlight on Nancy Pelosi's insider trades.

“When President-elect Obama came to Washington in late 2008, he was outspoken about the need for an economic stimulus to revive a struggling economy... After he was sworn in as president, he proclaimed that taxpayer money would assuredly not be doled out to political friends...

...But an examination of grants and guaranteed loans offered by just one stimulus program run by the Department of Energy, for alternative-energy projects, is stunning.  The so-called 1705 Loan Guarantee Program and the 1603 Grant Program channeled billions of dollars to all sorts of energy companies...

...In the 1705 government-backed-loan program [alone], for example, $16.4 billion of the $20.5 billion in loans granted as of Sept. 15 went to companies either run by or primarily owned by Obama financial backers—individuals who were bundlers, members of Obama’s National Finance Committee, or large donors to the Democratic Party.  The grant and guaranteed-loan recipients were early backers of Obama before he ran for president, people who continued to give to his campaigns and exclusively to the Democratic Party in the years leading up to 2008.  Their political largesse is probably the best investment they ever made in alternative energy. It brought them returns many times over.

...The Government Accountability Office has been highly critical of the way guaranteed loans and grants were doled out by the Department of Energy, complaining that the process appears “arbitrary” and lacks transparency.  In March 2011, for example, the GAO examined the first 18 loans that were approved and found that none were properly documented.  It also noted that officials “did not always record the results of analysis” of these applications.  A loan program for electric cars, for example, “lacks performance measures.”  No notes were kept during the review process, so it is difficult to determine how loan decisions were made.  The GAO further declared that the Department of Energy “had treated applicants inconsistently in the application review process, favoring some applicants and disadvantaging others.”  The Department of Energy’s inspector general, Gregory Friedman, ... has testified that contracts have been steered to “friends and family.”

...These programs might be the greatest—and most expensive—example of crony capitalism in American history.  Tens of billions of dollars went to firms controlled or owned by fundraisers, bundlers, and political allies, many of whom—surprise!—are now raising money for Obama again...”

Now, let’s get back to my opening paragraph.

The federal government has no money.  Funds that the federal government distributes come from the people in the form of taxes and fees.

What this means is that President Barack H. Obama is using YOUR money to fund HIS political campaign for re-election.

It’s as simple as that, my friends.

And today, the L.A. Times piles on another example...this one worth $443 Million.

Reporting from Washington—

Over the last year, the Obama administration has aggressively pushed a $433-million plan to buy an experimental smallpox drug, despite uncertainty over whether it is needed or will work.

Senior officials have taken unusual steps to secure the contract for New York-based Siga Technologies Inc., whose controlling shareholder is billionaire Ronald O. Perelman, one of the world's richest men and a longtime Democratic Party donor.

When Siga complained that contracting specialists at the Department of Health and Human Services were resisting the company's financial demands, senior officials replaced the government's lead negotiator for the deal, interviews and documents show.

When Siga was in danger of losing its grip on the contract a year ago, the officials blocked other firms from competing.

Siga was awarded the final contract in May through a "sole-source" procurement in which it was the only company asked to submit a proposal. The contract calls for Siga to deliver 1.7 million doses of the drug for the nation's biodefense stockpile. The price of approximately $255 per dose is well above what the government's specialists had earlier said was reasonable, according to internal documents and interviews.