Mere coincidence: campaign contributions lead to government loans?

"Obama loan officer at work."
“Obama loan officer at work.”

Say it ain’t so! “Cause for Action,” which bills itself as a “governmentΒ accountability”Β group, took a look at “green energy” loans made by the Department of Energy (1) and found a (not so) surprising correlation between energy companies that made campaign donations and those that were awarded loans (2).

Cronyism in the halls of Chicago-on-the-Potomac?Β You make the call:

Could the Department of Energy Loan Guarantee Program Β be characterized as a breeding ground for cronyism in the distribution of loans through the 1703, 1705, and Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing Loan Guarantee Programs? (3)

Cause of Action was able to determine, through publicly available data combined with a FOIA production, that for corporationsΒ who have received a loan guarantee of any amount, the likelihood that it made campaign contributions increases significantly. Of the data available, 95% (.95) of DOE loan recipients with less than $1 billion in annual revenue documented political contributions by the organization or senior level staff. Comparatively, only 31% (.319489) of similarly sized organizations that did not receive loans made political contributions in one way or another.

So, winners who happened to make contributions outnumbered losing donors by more than three to one. As they used to say on Laugh-in, “verrrryyyΒ interesting!”

Now, you’ll note the report does not say to whom the donations went. But, look at it this way: parties that lose elections rarely get to hand out the big bucks.

But only a racist would see cronyism, here.

viaΒ Steven Hayward, who has other examples of Green failures.

Footnotes:
(1) Until recently headed by Steven Chu, ofΒ SolyndraΒ fame. Those Obama “investments” sure pay off, don’t they?
(2) Also known as taxpayer (that’s us) money either taken from us directly or borrowed on our credit.
(3) That last is, I believe, the program under which electric car-manufacturers Tesla and Fisker got their Green loans. Oddly, principals at both companies areΒ big Obama donors. Small world, eh?

(Crossposted at Public Secrets)

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