There is a strange double standard in President-elect Obama’s largesse with the public purse when it comes to Wall Street’s banks and insurance companies as compared to his more exacting stance toward bailing out the U.S. auto industry. In his December 7, 2008 interview with Meet the Press he set conditions for an auto industry bailout, but said nothing about setting similar conditions for the financial sector.
A quick trip to maplight.org reveals the following list of top ten interest areas that have contributed to Obama's Senate accounts.
Total Campaign Contributions Received: $350,573,336
Top 10 Interests Funding
Interest Contributions
Retired $41,377,564
Attorneys & law firms $37,193,295
Schools & colleges $15,955,408
General commerce $12,306,371
Security brokers & investment companies $6,946,172
Civil servant/public employee $6,353,080
Business services $5,995,808
Democratic/Liberal $5,671,243
Book, newspaper & periodical publishing $5,392,514
Physicians $4,530,946
Contributions from political parties and from other candidates are not included in top 10 lists.
The obvious answer to Mr. Hudson's point is the Security brokers and Investment companies sitting there at 5th on the list, while the auto makers don't make the top ten. Detroit has obviously gotten behind on their bribe, uh contribution, payments.
The reason why Wall Street and Detroit aren't treated the same is rather obvious. Follow the money, and it will reveal much if not all you need to know about politics in DC.
2 comments:
I'll admit I don't completely understand these numbers. They are huge, and much bigger than for most Senators. A Senate campaign costs in the tens of millions these days ... $10 million, $30 million, something like that. Obama has two campaigns to which contributions could go, 2004 and 2010. $350 million is a huge number.
And the legend on this chart does say they are contributions since 2001 to his Senate accounts. My guess is that while a lot of money went into his Presidential accounts this year ($750 million is the final tally ... three times the old Dubya record), more money was flowing into his Senate re-election accounts as well.
PS ... one thing I have no idea about is what Obama can do with money now in is 2010 Senate re-election campaign accounts.
Any Senator has been fundraising since the day after the last election. And he obviously now is not running in that election. So, what is he allowed to do with that money?
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