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.In 2003, USA Today reported, Reynolds was caught on FBI wiretaps arranging what prosecutors called a “sham” consulting contract with a gal pal of a Philadelphia mayoral adviser.After the conversations, Reynolds snagged $300,000 in no-bid city contracts for Loop Capital Markets.82 City officials went to jail over the scam.Reynolds skated.The Obama campaign’s only statement?“Jim Reynolds has admitted that he made mistakes, but he has not been charged with any wrongdoing.”83Only the highest ethical standards for Hope and Change.GEORGE THE GENEROUSLY PAID GENERAL COUNSELCorporate lawyer George W.Madison worked for retirement management company TIAA-CREF before the Obama administration tapped him for the general counsel position at the Treasury Department.The firm has spent big bucks lobbying in Washington.But Treasury ethics bureaucrats saw no conflict of interest problems.In fact, they approved a deal allowing Madison to collect a government salary of $153,200 while receiving an additional $955,000 next year from TIAA-CREF as part of a corporate buyout.Madison is slated to receive another $1.6 million from TIAA-CREF in 2011 and $333,000 in 2012, according to the Washington Times.84 Obama officials state blithely that Madison will simply recuse himself from any matter affecting TIAA-CREF.The company, however, has lobbied every corner of the federal government on every major corporate financial issue ranging from the banking bailout to executive compensation to accounting and securities regulations to mortgage reform, and the stimulus.What would be left for Madison to counsel the Treasury Department on?MARK THE CORPORATE LOBBYISTThere’s always room for another Goldman Sachs water-carrier in the House of Barack.Even if it means breaking Obama’s own no-lobbyist rules.In January 2009, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner chose former Goldman Sachs lobbyist Mark Patterson to serve as his top deputy and overseer of the $700 billion TARP banking bailout—$10 billion of which went to Goldman Sachs.In the understatement of the year, left-leaning government watchdog Melanie Sloan of the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington responded: “It makes it appear that they are saying one thing and doing another.”85 Give her the Sherlock Holmes Award!Paul Blumenthal of the Sunlight Foundation noted that, while at Goldman Sachs, Patterson lobbied against executive pay limits that Obama had crusaded for as Senator (before, that is, his administration carved out exemptions for AIG).While Patterson agreed to recuse himself on any Goldman Sachs-related issues or related policy concerns, Blumenthal wrote, it “still creates a serious conflict for Geithner, as Treasury is being partly managed by a former Goldman lobbyist.Geithner is also placed in a tough position considering that his chief of staff is limited in the areas in which he can work (supposedly).”86As if that weren’t enough baggage, Washington Examiner columnist Timothy P.Carney reported that Patterson was also a former Tom Daschle acolyte and adviser who carved out a niche in alternative energy mandates and subsidies.He championed an ethanol firm in Canada, Iogen Corporation, which received $30 million from Goldman Sachs in a bid to boost its green image.The logs started rolling.Iogen soon received an $80 million Bush Energy Department grant and millions more in energy bill set-asides.“So now you see how it works,” Carney demonstrated.A well-connected company invests in a technology that is currently unprofitable.That company then uses its high-dollar lobbyists and friends inside government to subsidize or mandate that product into profitability.Goldman similarly invested in—and lobbied for—greenhouse gas credits, which are literally worthless without climate change legislation that caps emissions.A good lobbyist is like an alchemist, turning lead into gold.Mark Patterson and Goldman Sachs may not have figured out how to turn switchgrass into energy, but they did figure out how to turn it into profit.Patterson is a rainmaker, leveraging his government connections into private profit.He’s emblematic of both the “green revolution” Obama touts, and the “revolving door” Obama assails.87Yes, so much for Obama’s “close the revolving door between K Street and Capitol Hill.”88 So much for ridding Washington and Wall Street of “excess greed, excess compensation, excess risk taking.” 89 So much for giving the American people “more than window-dressing when it comes to ethics reform [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]