No Matter How Cynical I Get, I Can’t Keep Up
Well, if you could unhook my jacket from the horns of this dilemma, I’d know whether to be exceptionally happy or weary and watchful.
Anyone can set up a PAC. You don’t need the candidate to do it. Ready For Hillary is a PAC. Whoever owns that PAC did not need Hillary’s permission to use her name. They collect money that people assume goes to Hillary. Not all of it does.
The good news is that greedy Republicans are ripping each other off in a grand style and they are using PACs to do it.
A Republican decided to look at some of their PACs to see if they were actually helping candidates. Some are, others not so much. They estimate that $50 million was collected and never spent on campaigns or elections.
For example, nearly $14 million was raised by The National Draft Bend Carson for President PAC. Of that, only 4%, $530,000 went to actually help Ben Carson or his campaign.
Same deal with SarahPAC. Sarah only got 7% of the $3 million they raised.
There’s a nifty chart with the rest they looked at. It’s about half way down this page.
And here’s the scary part: we probably don’t know the worst of it.
We also found quite a few PACS that made large payments to vendors who were owned by people who worked for the PAC. This certainly can be done for legitimate purposes, but it’s also an easy way to move money around while keeping your donors from seeing what you’re actually doing with it. For example, this is done in some cases to obscure how much people at the PAC are really making. The Senate Conservatives Fund and American Crossroads appear to have done that. However, it can also be a way for PACs to siphon off money. If a PAC officer pays a vendor he owns, he doesn’t have to report what the vendor did with it to the FEC, which means nobody really knows what happens to the money.
Now why would this worry me if Republicans are getting ripped off?
Because it’s likely that it is happening to Democrats, too.
Be real careful who you give your money to.
Thank to Alfredo over at the Dairy Queen for the cynical heads up.
So the club that often cheats, lies, and grifts regularly is full of con folks willing to cheat them and pocket the profits. Such a shock.
It is the American Way, just like some of our most famous Americans…Capone, Bugsy…
1Poetic justice!
2Wow, what a great way to launder money.
3Sarah Pac basically keeps el Quitto in walking around money. She is free to spend it on whatever(meaning herownself) she wants.
4A couple of weeks ago, it was reported (without much splash) that Mike Huckabee’s PAC gave only 5% of its funds to campaigns in 2012, whilst paying his daughter, daughter-in-law and niece each over $100,000.
And how do you re-direct some of that stuff into your own pockets, and not just to your friends and relations? Why, have your PAC buy 1000s of copies of the latest book that someone ghost-wrote for you and hand them out to people attending your talks and fundraisers.
Not only will this artificially jack you up to “best-seller” status, it also puts some nice royalties in your mailbox.
All this direct mail and PAC and SuperPac stuff is welfare for an entire generation of Republican sponges, mopes, grifters and their kids.
5Never been a PAC person. They simply remind me of all the little cloying cliques in jr and sr high. Just not egalitarian at all.
6I’m starting an open carry PAC. I’ll raise a million a year, and every six months I’ll go to DC, pay for Joaquin’s dinner at the Capitol Grill, and ask him in a ten second conversation to support open carry. Then we’ll talk about friends, family, wine and food for a couple of hours. I ran this idea past Mr. Barnum in sales and he approved.
7I actually am thrilled by the Rethugs losing their money on lost causes. To wit, AFTER our President vetoed the XL death funnel, I have been watching the ads paid for by the Petroleum Institute on the TV urging people to ask the Prez to OK it.
A Tee and then a Hee.
8Hey, some of us could start a PAC for old ladies with fallen arches. Those fancy arch supports are expensive, you know.
9Because….. according to SCOTUS……. “Freedom of Speech”.
Who am I to argue with that? 🙂
10I wonder how many PACs are labeled as supporting one party but actually moving the money into the other party….just being curious cynic.
11It sounds like some of those are for people with more dollars than sense.
I’m not overburdened with money, so I try to give where I can trust and where it will do the most good.
I give to my church and local organizations I know about. I buy from school children’s fundraisers, even though they may not be cost effective. My political giving most recently has been directly to candidates on the local and state level, except for when “the hat is passed” at my local Democratic meeting. For national charities I try to check organizations like Charity Navigator,but seldom have money to spare for them.
A year or so ago, after reading about how much education spending had been cut, I donated $100 to the local school system and wrote a letter to the editor for the local newspaper urging others to also donate. A month or so later I called the school system treasurer and asked it anyone else had donated, no one else had. I realize others do other things; my church is collecting refreshments for a program at a school this week and I suppose others do such also.
I get emails asking me to give to PACs but so far have not, and now probably will not in the future.
12JJ, I hate to contradict you, especially since I do NOT have all the facts at my fingertips. I believe that the 7% paid out by SarahPAC was for OTHER people’s campaigns (Nikki Haley, Michele-one-L Bachmann, etc.), with the other 93% that’s been paid out going to family (including Sarah herself), friends, and, as mentioned above, purchasing books she didn’t write for artificially inflated sales numbers, which are then used as “gifts” for contributors who write a big enough check.
13Wondering what it takes to start a PAC? I’m thinking “Cruz For President PAC” sounds good. I mean, I didn’t specify president of what exactly. Or “Texans for Open Carry PAC.” Because I think Texans should be able to openly carry-out dinner if they want. There’s no shame in that. Let’s siphon off some of that sweet GOP money! I can pay myself as a consultant, to you know, consult and stuff.
Woo-Hoo!
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