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Sunday morning, Liane Hansen spoke with McManus (Washington bureau chief for LA Times) about the inauguration. I was dumbstruck in the wake of the revelation about corporate donations reaching $250,000, how McManus attempted to slough this off by saying the Democrats, especially under Bill Clinton, did the same thing. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4286823F*ck you, McManus. Get your facts straight! Nearly 200 companies, trade associations, and private individuals have already donated close to $25 million to finance the presidential fete, according the figures released Jan. 14 by the inaugural committee.
Some of the big donor companies include ExxonMobil (XOM: news, chart, profile), ChevronTexaco (CVX: news, chart, profile), Cinergy Corp (CIN: news, chart, profile), Ford Motor (F: news, chart, profile), Occidental Petroleum (OXY: news, chart, profile), Pfizer (PFE: news, chart, profile), TimeWarner (TWX: news, chart, profile), UPS (UPS: news, chart, profile) and Wachovia (WB: news, chart, profile).
In addition, more than 60 wealthy individuals have donated at least $25,000 of their personal money to the inauguration committee. And more ten of these rich contributors have given the $250,000 limit.
And each has reason to give. The federal government makes key decisions that affect their businesses, which range from oil and gas interests to financial services companies to hoteliers.(more) If the $40-million cost estimate, which does not include the cost of security, proves accurate, Bush second inauguration will be the most expensive in history.
That's $7 million more expensive than in 1993, when President Bill Clinton's inaugural committee spent $33 million, raised mostly from souvenir and ticket sales, and more than $10 million over his $29-million inaugural in 1997. For his second inauguration, which took place as the White House was under fire for dodgy fundraising, Clinton limited individual donations to $100. http://cbs.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?guid=%7B2A7EA68A-0361-4533-BC34-EA1BEBDCA8EB%7D&siteid=googleLeave it to a Media Whore to try to gloss over the excesses and improprieties of the Bushistas by "comparing" them to the Clinton Administration!
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