Where Did The Money Go ?

The Washington Free Beacon posted a story today about the connections between stimulus money given out and people who donated to the Obama presidential campaign in 2008. Solyndra is the poster child for this connection, but there is more to the Solyndra story.

The article reports:

Obama bundler George Kaiser was a major stakeholder in Solyndra through his Kaiser Family Foundation, and made several trips to the White House in March 2009 to meet with senior administration officials. In July 2009, Kaiser bragged about securing face time with “all the key players in the West Wing of the White House,” as well as his “almost unique advantage” when it came to steering taxpayer funds toward his pet causes.

“There’s never been more money shoved out of the government’s door in world history, and probably never will be again, than in the last few months and in the next 18 months,” Kaiser told members of the Tulsa Rotary Club. “And our selfish parochial goal is to get as much as it for Tulsa and Oklahoma as we possibly can.”

Although things did not pan out for Solyndra—the company filed for bankruptcy in September 2011—Kaiser can expect to see a better return on his investment than American taxpayers. As part of an agreement to restructure Solyndra’s loan agreement in 2010, Obama’s DOE granted priority status to private investors like Kaiser with respect to the first $75 million recovered in the event of the firm’s bankruptcy, a move that many suspect violated federal law.

Taxpayers, meanwhile, are unlikely to recover much of the money invested on their behalf.

Unfortunately, Solyndra was not the only total waste of stimulus money.

The article lists other examples of companies of campaign donors who received major cash investments or loan guarantees from the Obama Administration.

The article further reports:

The Securities and Exchange Commission is currently investigating whether DreamWorks made illegal payments to Chinese officials in order to secure exclusive film rights in the communist nation. The New York Times reported that Katzenberg, as well as Vice President Joe Biden, were intimately involved in negotiating an agreement under which China would up its annual quota of foreign-produced films from 20 to 34 and allow studios to keep a greater percentage of box-office revenue.

DreamWorks announced a $2 billion deal with the Chinese government in February to build a production studio in Shanghai just days after Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping held an extensive meeting with Barack Obama in Washington, D.C.

When Mitt Romney ran Bain capital, he helped companies succeed. It seems like our government has a definite ability to spend large amounts of taxpayer money helping companies fail.