January 22, 2013
Big Money but No Big Lines
On Obama?s Second Inauguration
by DAVE LINDORFF
Surely the most jarring disconnect, though, was the inaugural celebration itself. There is no reason why a Constitutionally-mandated ceremony has to be financed by private money, yet the president?s Inauguration Committee solicited and had, by this last weekend, accepted over $124.3 million in contributions from corporations and labor unions, according to the
Center for Public Integrity. That dwarf?s the $50 million that was raised in private donations for the president?s first inauguration. It also came in much bigger amounts, as the president this year dropped a $50,000 maximum donation limit he had set for his first term Inaugural. This time the limit was set at $1 million.
The list of corporations and labor unions seeking to buy influence through this unique funding opportunity provided by the president includes Bank of America, Coca-Cola, FedEx, AT&T, the health care management firms DC Health Care Inc. and Cetene Management Corp., East Lake Management & Development Corp., Financial Innovations, Inc., the electric generating company Southern Company Services and Exxon/Mobil. Exxon alone gave $260,000 to the committee.
Unions that donated included the International Association of Fire Fighters, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, American Federation of Government Employees, American Postal Workers Union, International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, Laborers International Union of North America, Sheet Metal Workers International, United Food & Commercial Workers.
All these companies and unions are donating not out of some sense of civic duty but to in order to buy favors from the White House during the president?s second term.
Excerpts from:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/01/22/on-obamas-second-inauguration/
