April 5, 2005
IT'S POLITICS, JAKE:
Pelosi helped donor to PAC (Stephen Dinan, 4/05/05, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi helped secure $3 million last year for a nonprofit transportation-research organization whose president gave money to her political action committee as the group was paying for a European trip for one of her policy advisers.Transportation adviser Lara Levison's nine-day, $4,475 trip to Spain and Germany last April to learn about hydrogen-fuel cells for buses was primarily paid for by WestStart-CALSTART.
But just days before the trip, WestStart-CALSTART announced that Mrs. Pelosi had helped the nonprofit group secure $1 million from the Federal Transit Administration for a bus rapid-transit program. A month after the Levison trip, the group sent out a press release thanking her for a $2 million grant for a fuel-cell program.
According to campaign records, WestStart-CALSTART Chief Executive Officer John R. Boesel also gave $1,000 to one of Mrs. Pelosi's political action committees in 2003 and $1,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Both Mr. Boesel and Mrs. Pelosi's spokeswoman, Jennifer Crider, said there is no link between the staffer's trip and the grants.
"This trip was completely within the House rules. The two projects were long-standing projects we've worked on," Ms. Crider said.
As with her own attacks on Tom DeLay, it's silly to make too much of things like Ms Pelosi accepting help from groups she supports. Posted by Orrin Judd at April 5, 2005 3:08 PM
Does anyone in DC actually read the budget or do they just let all the stuff through like a fire hose?
Posted by: bart at April 5, 2005 4:19 PMIt isn't possible for an individual to read the entire annual budget in one year.
Posted by: oj at April 5, 2005 4:23 PMJust another example of how if you criminalize everything,selective enforcement (or in this case, selective indignation) becomes the norm. The real solution is not more laws to micromanage the loopholes that contributors and politicians will find, but spread out and remove the power market that they've set up.
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at April 5, 2005 4:47 PMoj:
I read years ago (can't recall the source) that if you took thirty seconds to read each line item in the federal budget, reading 40 hours per week for fifty weeks, you couldn't finish even this minimal perusal in a year. Hence the need for baseline budgeting, where no perusal is required, much less deliberation.
Posted by: Fred Jacobsen (San Fran) at April 5, 2005 5:58 PM