Monday, January 5, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Hillary Clinton Haunted By Her Tax Break Pork
When it comes to big-time campaign contributors, ideologues are often the most noble. They tend to give because they believe in ideas, not because they want some personal favor in return. Peter Buttenweiser, a Philadelphia philanthropist, is a good case in point. For years, he was one of the Democratic Party's biggest benefactors ($1.3 million in the 2000 cycle), but he was always open about his reasons for giving. He was a progressive, and he wanted Republicans to lose. He also disliked the corruption that surrounded his business. In 1996, when he was asked by Clinton family fundraiser Terry McAulliffe to give $50,000 for an intimate lunch with President Clinton, Buttenweiser went public with what he saw as an inappropriate sale of a seat at the table.
On the other side of the spectrum are the capitalist donors. These are people who have clear financial interests and they give money based on which party or politician can best further those interests. Of course, this is a harder breed to identify, because even the most dastardly business donor usually claims to have more noble reasons.
Which brings us to the case of Robert Congel, a wealthy real estate developer. He is a very generous political giver--almost always to Republicans. He was a "Ranger" fundraiser for George W. Bush, raising at least $200,000 in the 2004 cycle. He gave money in this last cycle to Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney. He gave $25,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee. In some ways, this may make him look like a classic ideological donor, a rich guy who likes the Republican cause. But Congel has a few exceptions to his Republican-only rule, including an apparent soft-spot for the family Clinton--and I am not just talking about his regular contributions to Hillary Clinton's campaign.
The inestimable Charlie Savage, now of the New York Times, had a story yesterday laying out the case.
An upstate New York developer donated $100,000 to former President Bill Clinton's foundation in November 2004, around the same time that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton helped secure millions of dollars in federal assistance for the businessman's mall project. Mrs. Clinton helped enact legislation allowing the developer, Robert J. Congel, to use tax-exempt bonds to help finance the construction of the Destiny USA entertainment and shopping complex, an expansion of the Carousel Center in Syracuse. Mrs. Clinton also helped secure a provision in a highway bill that set aside $5 million for Destiny USA roadway construction. The bill with the tax-free bonds provision became law in October 2004, weeks before the donation, and the highway bill with the set-aside became law in August 2005, about nine months after the donation.
I have a vivid memory of the Destiny USA issue from back in 2004 and 2005, when I was reporting a story about all the waste and earmarks in Washington. It was not hard to figure out that the whole "Green Bonds" program pushed by Clinton for Destiny was bad policy. It cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars and subsidized the construction of about four shopping malls in the name of the environment. That's right: shopping malls to save the environment. At the time, as Savage notes, Clinton bragged about her efforts to send federal money to get a new New York mall. "I worked successfully to get the green bonds passed," she crowed. "I think it would be a big shot in the arm.”
Now we know that at the same time Clinton was working to funnel millions of dollars in tax breaks to Congel, Congel was writing a $100,000 check to Bill Clinton's foundation, a contribution that has been shrouded in secrecy for four years. Of course, Congel now says he only gave money to the Clinton Foundation because the former president was a "dedicated, dedicated" American. If you believe that, I would like to talk to you about this idea I have. I want to build three shopping malls--in Yellowstone, in Yosemite and on the rim of the Grand Canyon. They will be crazy energy efficient, and really good for the environment. How much money you got?
ALSO: I have a new Time.com story up about Obama's big day in Washington.
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Senior Writer Karen Tumulty has been TIME's National Political Correspondent since 2001, and has also covered the White House and Congress for the magazine. A native of San Antonio, she is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and Harvard Business School, where her career choice has significantly lowered the average salary of her graduating class. But she gets lots of free magazines. Read More »
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Joe Klein is TIME's political columnist and author of six books, most recently Politics Lost. His weekly TIME column, "In the Arena," covers national and international affairs. In 2004 he won the National Headliner Award for best magazine column. Read More »
Michael Scherer is the White House correspondent for TIME. He previously worked for Salon.com, Mother Jones, and the Daily Hampshire Gazette. A native of San Francisco, he graduated from U.C. Santa Cruz and Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. Read More » Follow Michael Scherer on Twitter
Jay Newton-Small is the congressional correspondent for TIME. Born in New York, she spent time growing up in Asia, Australia and Europe following her vagabond United Nations parents. A graduate of Tufts University and Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism, Jay previously covered politics for Bloomberg News. And, yes, despite the misleading name SHE is a she. Read More » Follow Jay Newton-Small on Twitter
Amy Sullivan is a senior editor at TIME magazine, and author of the book The Party Faithful: How and Why Democrats are Closing the God Gap (Scribner, 2008). A Michigan native, she holds degrees from the University of Michigan and Harvard Divinity School. She writes about religion and politics for TIME, but no longer answers to the name "Bible Girl." Read More »
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Monday, January 5, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Yes, the Clintons are tainted by donors.I agree.
Monday, January 5, 2009 at 2:37 pm
I now see how the Federal government has the same function as a Casino or lottery operation. Rather than have States collect rather high taxes to provide for their local needs, everybody kicks in to a much larger kitty and then hopes to game the system in order to extract more than they kicked in. All the parties agree to the arrangment because like gamblers everywhere, they're all convinced that today is their lucky day.
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And its not as if politicians don't indeed routinely brag about their ability to draw more than their 'fair' share of the booty.
Monday, January 5, 2009 at 2:42 pm
I only wish Michael had been this willing to connect the dots when he was covering the McCain campaign.
Monday, January 5, 2009 at 2:45 pm
The Clintons are an easy target. And they take every opportunity to paint a a bulls eye on their foreheads. Now, Michael, if you can give us a list of Bush's Rangers and those who received no-bid contracts for deliversing goods and services in the Iraq War I have some stuff....
Monday, January 5, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Congratulations: Captain Louis Renault Award.
Monday, January 5, 2009 at 2:57 pm
The only interesting thing in this post was learning that Charlie Savage worked for that short lived rag the New York Sun.
Monday, January 5, 2009 at 2:59 pm
MS: Is Obama haunted by the haunting of HRC?
Monday, January 5, 2009 at 3:00 pm
I'm so glad that Cheney isn't haunted by his ties to Haliburton, and his love of "the dark side." Were it so, I'm certain MS would report on it.
Monday, January 5, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Why does Tim Kaine have Slobodan Milosevic's haircut?
Monday, January 5, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Get your MS hauntings straight, people! BlagoGate is haunting Obama; this donation is haunting Clinton. I hope TIME doesn't have to send someone over to check under your bed at night. You are very easily haunted.
Monday, January 5, 2009 at 3:10 pm
I just have this feeling that Clinton is piker next to the senior senator from New York. He deals in the tens of billions to his patrons.
Monday, January 5, 2009 at 3:29 pm
If you care about national parks that much, Scherer, you should thank your lucky stars your BFF McCain didn't get the office.
Monday, January 5, 2009 at 3:33 pm
OT, but useful info. Tom Ricks has a new blog at Foreign Policy.
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http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/
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Smart guy. Had this to say about the Bolton-Yoo op-ed:
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NYT op-ed page tortures me with an unreadable article by John Bolton AND John Yoo. Frankly, I'd rather be waterboarded. Bolton also bloviates on the Post op-ed page. Could we at least have a decent interval before these guys start telling Obama what to do? Please? This feels like Herbert Hoover holding forth on the New Deal.
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heh.
Monday, January 5, 2009 at 3:41 pm
who have overseen the terrific expansion of often wasteful federal spending over the last decade
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Don't forget that one person's 'wasteful spending' can be another person 'research budget'. I recall that many of the projects that McCain made fun of during the campaign we're precisely the sort of investments in knowlege that pay significantly down the road. Think of where we'd be today if research into alternative energy had actually been generously funded 30 years ago when then oncoming problem was already clearly visible to those paying attention.
Monday, January 5, 2009 at 4:41 pm
MS, good post.
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BTW, $100,000 is nothing compared to what he received. Which is the only thing that suggests HRC may have done this without a donation. Bill Clinton can make $100,000 for one speech, and I suspect she had to spend a significant amount of time and political capital in pushing this through. Undoubtedly Blago could have extracted much more!
Monday, January 5, 2009 at 5:12 pm
(1) The insinuations about the Clintons are not substantiated and the clear fact that Bill Clinton's foundation is a charitable organization that does incredible amount of good must also be taken into consideration IMO. The snarkiness isn't necessary.
(2) The piece you linked too is just bad. The title is insulting and belittling the president-elect IMO. And the insinuation that Barack Obama is grandstanding and might not be able to get this deal done neglects the facts: first of all the terms of the debate have been set on Obama's terms, second in doing these tax cuts he fulfills his campaign promises and looks bipartisan and gains good will from the public that paves the way to stimulus spending and three he has sky high approval ratings and the bully pulpit in fifteen days. So far, he's been the one winning the battles.
This post and the piece you wrote were Republican talking points; talking to the other side sometimes is a good thing.