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Categories - Copywriting - Shopping - Free Online Business Help - Telecommunications Services Articles: Government - Special Interest Inauguration Obama continues to show us that we have to stay on our toes. He banned donations from special interests for his inauguration, but, according to watchdog group Public Citizen, nearly 80% of the funding collected so far has come from wealthy donors and individuals associated with Wall Street. Louis Sussman, vice chairman of Citigroup Corporate and Investment Banking, is among at least 32 fundraisers, known as "bundlers" who have raised $300,000 — the maximum allowed by the inaugural committee. Sussman ponied up the maximum, $50,000 in an individual donation. Citigroup, now attempting to survive by downsizing, has already received $25 billion in bailout money, the most of any bank.
Senior executive Mark Gilbert of Lehman Brothers, which got some federal assistance but collapsed before the $700 billion bailout was approved, raised $185,000.
Chairman Robert Wolf of UBS Americas raised $100,000.
Jennifer Scully, vice president for private wealth management at Goldman Sachs, raised $100,000.
Bruce Heyman, managing director of Goldman’s Private Wealth Management Group’s Midwest Region, came up with $50,000.
Kobi Brinson, senior vice president and assistant general counsel for Wachovia raised $35,000.
Also among the bundlers are executives of hedge funds and private equity funds that have invested in some of the ailing Wall Street giants.
Obama’s 211 inaugural bundlers account for $27.6 million of the $35.3 million raised to date. More than half the inaugural bundlers also served as bundlers to the Obama campaign, according to Public Citizen’s analysis.
Add to this the $700 million that Obama is known to have taken from Fannie Mae and you can start to get the picture.
David Arkush, director of Public Citizen's Congress Watch, says "it's no wonder that Wall Street is pouring so much money into this inauguration. The executive branch has given bailouts worth trillions of dollars to Wall Street firms and is considering trillions more. Wall Street has a lot at stake."
The first Act that Obama will sign into law is Barney Frank's TARP Reform Act that he pushed through Congress under the radar. The Act not only gives Wall Street the additional $350 billion remaining in the TARP funds, but it also makes future funds available to them without any Congressional oversight through direct loans to the FICA and the Treasury. While the corporate media has us up in arms over and distracted by this bank bailout bill, banks have received over $7 trillion in beneficial legislation.
The next Act that Obama will likely sign into law, after special interests are guaranteed their share, will be his $850 billion economic stimulus. It appears that the financial institutions that run our country are going to allow our President his pet projects that only cost peanuts compared to the amounts that they will be getting.
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