Transportation Spending: More Republican Falsehoods

   A Republican would not tell the truth even if their life depended on it. It just is not in their genetic make-up to do so.

Surprise! Republicans lie about 'wasteful' transportation spending

by Laura Clawson  for Daily Kos Labor    Mon Oct 31, 2011

When Oklahoma Sen. Tom "Dr. No" Coburn and his partners in intransigence want to depict funding for transportation enhancements as wasteful, they take two deceptive approaches, an AP fact check finds. First, they exaggerate the amount spent, saying that states are required to spend 10 percent of federal transportation money on the transportation enhancements program. In fact, it's 10 percent of one specific piece of federal aid, which amounts to just 2 percent of total federal transportation money.

Then they really go to work, spinning tales of specific outrages that have wasted federal transportation funding while our bridges crumble. The big problem with that is that, as the AP's Joan Lowy details, Coburn and allies like John McCain start with a list of 39 allegedly wasteful projects, out of more than 25,000 done in the program's nearly 20 year history, and even so many of their examples are false:

Coburn's list includes a 1996 grant for preservation of a "factory used to make saddletrees" — the foundation of a riding saddle — in Madison, Ind. Not mentioned is that the grant wouldn't qualify for enhancement money under current program rules, according to Transportation Department officials.

The Texas Department of Transportation is described as spending $16.2 million in enhancement money to restore the Battleship Texas, docked in the Houston Ship Channel. If so, they weren't federal transportation dollars. U.S. transportation officials said an application for the money was turned down.

The list cited landscaping to screen a junkyard in Aiken, S.C. After checking with state and local authorities, federal officials said the project was canceled years ago and again, no funds were awarded.

Then there are the cases where federal transportation money was actually spent, but Republicans are misrepresenting what it was spent on. They love to talk about the turtle tunnel in Florida, which allows turtles to cross under a busy section of road and not be run over. But as I've previously pointed out, even if you don't think saving wildlife is a worthwhile activity, that tunnel helps prevent traffic accidents that had been caused by drivers swerving to avoid turtles (and, Lowy notes, alligators and other animals). What's more, the tunnels came in under budget, where Republicans are claiming that the project is over budget and that expenditures are continuing.

Similarly, Republicans have represented a simulator theater at the National Corvette Museum as being entertainment, a chance to feel what it's like to drive a Corvette. But really, it's "a driver-education classroom for free driving classes for older people and teenagers."

It's the $16 muffin all over again, and it's the best they've got: lies, more lies and misrepresentations.

Originally posted to Daily Kos Labor on Mon Oct 31, 2011

Also republished by Daily Kos and Class Warfare Newsletter: WallStreet VS the Working Class Occupy movement..

Technorati Tags: Tom Coburn,Republicans,John McCain,D.O.T.,Transportation Spending,Current Events,An American Gothic,Politics

Herman Cain campaign may have violated campaign finance laws

   By Laura Clawson    Mon Oct 31, 2011     Daily Kos

Herman Cain's campaign may be raising $5 million per month now, but things weren't always so flush. Back in February and March, Prosperity USA, a nonprofit organization run by top Cain aides Smokin' Mark Block and Linda Hansen, provided start-up funding for Cain's campaign, the Journal Sentinel reports:

A more detailed checking account says the Cain campaign owed nearly $15,000 for an "Atlanta invoice," about $17,000 for chartered flight service and $5,000 for travel and meetings in Iowa, Las Vegas, Houston, Dallas and Louisiana. The document says the Cain campaign had been billed $3,700 for iPads purchased on Jan. 4.

A series of small-ticket items for travel and expenses by Block are listed as "not billed to FOH but due from them."

This would be totally illegal, of course, and, making things worse:

It is not known if Cain's election fund eventually paid back Prosperity USA, which now appears defunct. The candidate's federal election filings make no mention of the debt, and the figures in the documents don't match payments made by the candidate's campaign.

One question implied by the Journal Sentinel report is whether Prosperity USA was in fact founded as the precursor to a Cain campaign: Block founded the organization just last year and in the brief window of time between its founding and when Cain became a candidate, it was paying costs associated with his travel to give speeches to conservative groups and to meet with conservative funders like David Koch.

Though sexual harassment allegations against Cain will dominate today's news cycle, this story is going to be another gift that keeps on giving for Cain's opponents and a media that thrives on scandal.

Originally posted to Laura Clawson on Mon Oct 31, 2011

Also republished by Daily Kos.

Technorati Tags: Herman Cain,Cain Campaign,2012 Election,Campaign Finance Laws,Current Events,An American Gothic,Politics