From the December 9, 2009 The Hill:
Nearly $6 million in stimulus money was paid to two firms run by Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton’s pollster in 2008.Handing these contracts to these firms might have been perfectly legitimate, but imagine if the Bush Administration had done stuff like this. It would be clear evidence of conflict of interest, corruption, etc. And I would agree: it would look really corrupt. Just like this.
Federal records show that $5.97 million from the $787 billion stimulus helped preserve three jobs at Burson-Marsteller, the global public-relations and communications firm headed by Penn.
Burson-Marsteller won the contract to work on a public-relations campaign to advertise the national switch from analog to digital television. Nearly $2.8 million of the contract was issued to Penn’s polling firm, Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, according to federal records.
Federal records also show that a former adviser to President Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign received nearly $70,000 from that contract to help alert viewers in difficult-to-reach communities that their televisions would soon no longer receive broadcast signals.
The adviser, Alfredo J. Balsera, who heads a public-affairs firm based in Coral Gables, Fla., helped craft Obama’s Hispanic advertising message.
Notice also how the government spent almost six million dollars to save three jobs. At almost two million dollars a job, I think the money could have been better spent. What if Congress had cut taxes by two million dollars? Do you think it would have created more than three jobs?
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