A must-read piece in the Sunday paper told of wealthy donors who accepted stimulus money from Uncle Sam and then forwarded some of it to Mitt Romney's campaign cash box while Mitt went around the country damning the program.
Among the ungrateful players were billionaire Les Wexner, chairman of Limited Brands, and retail designer Yaromir Steiner, the top guys associated with the Easton Town Center in northeast Columbus - a site that Koff described as a "paradise of a shopping Center" that reels in 21 million shoppers and others annually.
Wexner, the Easton developer, and Steiner sought and received a $911,356 grant from the Feds to "install new, energy efficient lighting in its parking garages." A dedicated supporter of Republicans, Wexner handed over $250,000 to Restore our Future, a super PAC opposed to "reckless spending". Steiner, Koff reported, also has given money to Josh Mandel, another Republican who noisily opposes the stimulus.
Among the others caught up in the same spirit of giving was the Timken Co., of Canton, which received $1.175 million in stimulus money. The Timken family has long been a major Republican sugar daddy and along with Steiner this year has included Mandel in its political benevolence.
There are other businessmen and companies mentioned who expect a gift from their giving, hypocrisy be damned. This much we can assure you: Some of them didn't build their enterprises themselves.
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4 comments:
I don't believe that it is hypocritical to accept stimulus funds when you oppose the stimulus program.
Opponents of the stimulus believed (correctly) that it was an waste of taxpayers dollars. They said that the costs of the stimulus would exceed the benefits and therefore it should not be implemented. However, once the stimulus bill passed Congress and taxpayers were forced to foot the bill it is only natural to want to reclaim some of what you are paying for.
I personally opposed the stimulus because I thought it was a waste of money. That being said, if the government was going to hand over stimulus funds to me I would be a fool not to take it. It just wouldn't be in the best interest of the country as a whole.
TPFan- Why not say you oppose abortion, but get one anyway because they're free ?
Somehow, I suspect, the Ohio Republican congresspersons (including Speaker John Boehner) who quite likely expedited the stimulus grants to generous fat-cat partisans after voting against the anti-recessionary legislation, have failed to sense the irony in this situation. These are same lawmakers, by the way, who have offered scathing denunciations of Obama's Energy Department that steered grants to start-up renewable energy projects, including Solyndra, in the hope of ginning up new job-creating enterprises and supplanting air-despoiling fossil fuels.
Well, it's nice to see that CatchPhraseDuJourFan84 is still around - older but not wiser.
Romney's campaign has shown that Republicans have not principles, just ambition. Accepting a subsidy from Obama and using it to fund his opponents fits well with Romney's style.
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