Campaign Contributions and Post-War Contracts
| CONTRACTOR | Total Contributions 1990 thru 2002 |
Contract Total Iraq plus Afghanistan |
| Kellogg, Brown & Root (Halliburton) | $2,379,792 | $2,329,040,891 |
| Bechtel Group Inc. | $3,310,102 | $1,029,833,000 |
| General Electric Company | $8,843,884 | $5,927,870 |
Why does anyone waste money on stocks? Check out the fantastic returns being paid on campaign donations.
The Center for Public Integrity just released figures showing that Halliburton pulled in more that $2 billion in bid-free contracts for a measly $2 million campaign donations. OK, this doesn’t include the $1,000,000 a year Halliburton pays our Vice-President, but it’s still a good rate of return.
Poor Bechtel got only $1 billion dollars in post-war contracts, despite $3 million in donations –but before you pity this mere 33,333% return on investment, you should realize that their total government windfall since 1990 is some $11 billion. Here’s hoping they do better work abroad than they did for the Big Dig in Boston.
And what about General Electric? They gave more money in campaign donations than any other company, and the CPI figures suggest they got less than they put in. GE’s $5,927,870 is just for work in Afghanistan–so far they’ve managed to block access to info about their contracts in Iraq, where it is known to be supplying generators and cooling equipment. They also have lots of other lobbying goals.
I don’t think Campaign Finance Reform did much to fix things like this. But if you want to fix it, send money to Howard Dean. Let’s get rid of Bush/Cheney and their Axis of Looters.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Betsy Devine // Oct 31, 2003 at 4:58 am
Frank says, “Why stop at selling your stocks? Sell your factories, lay off your workers–and give that money to Bush.” Hmmmm, looking around at idle factories and unemployed people, I can’t help wondering….
2 steve // Nov 1, 2003 at 3:36 pm
Funny, none of my campaign contributions seem to be paying off yet…