Smells Like a Cover-up at Obama White House July 14, 2010
Posted by seeineye in : Politics , 2commentsby Don Loos
Has Congressman Darrell Issa’s request that White House Political Director Patrick Gaspard explain his failure to report a $37,000 payment from his previous employer SEIU[i] Local 1199 evolved into a cover-up? It’s beginning to smell like it!
Rep. Issa’s request refers to the same Patrick Gaspard who while working for a Soros-SEIU political committee employed convicted felons to go door-to-door. In fact, that same Soros-SEIU committee received one of the steepest fines in Federal Election Commission history ($750,000) because its leadership, in Machiavellian fashion, chose to ignore federal laws and take the risk of paying fines if caught. So, ignoring a few pesky public disclosure laws is not as unlikely as it may sound.
Politico was first to provide the White House narrative that “Gaspard forgot” and that his actions require only “small administrative change” in its coverage:
“We have made the small administrative change to this year’s and last year’s forms to indicate that part of the final payment to Patrick reflected their typical severance of one week of pay for each of his nine years of service at Local 1199 of SEIU,” [White House spokesman Bill] Burton wrote POLITICO in an e-mailed statement.
Such financial disclosures are governed by federal law, but Stan Brand, a former House general counsel and ethics expert, said the Justice Department is unlikely to pursue an investigation unless they suspected a “knowing or willful” intent to deceive.
But, crosschecking Gaspard’s financial disclosure reports with SEIU financial reports and Obama campaign reports reveal that Gaspard’s recent revisions remain inconsistent and with that may rise to the “knowing or willful” standard mentioned in the Politico article.
In fact, Gaspard continues to file his federal employee disclosure forms incorrectly. We may not get a complete answer for Gaspard’s and the White House’s actions; however, we do know that Gaspard has had at least two attempts to report his financials accurately.
- SEIU paid Gaspard 38 weeks worth of salary in 2008 using his 2010 pay scale as reported in his recently submitted form (or as much as 42.5 weeks using Gaspard’s 2007 avg. pay scale). But, Obama’s presidential campaign starting paying Gaspard beginning about the 27th or 26th week of 2008. Since SEIU is legally prohibited from paying Gaspard to work for Obama, it is assumed that the 11 to 15.5 extra weeks of salary payments to Gaspard were for earned vacation time.
- In Gaspard’s revised financial disclosure, he reported “$17,238.56” for “SEIU, 1199 (carried over leave & vacation) [ii].”
- “SEIU, 1199, (severance – see Sched, C part II). Pursuant to SEIU policy. I received 9 weeks of severance payment (1 week of salary for each year of service). $17,488.40”[iii] – Gaspard did not work nine years at SEIU 1199 according to SEIU 1199’s union financial disclosure forms from 1999 to 2009. This should send up red flags to congressional investigators. (Gaspard’s severance number translates into $1,943.16 per week.)
- “SEIU, 1199 (salary January 1-16, 2009) $2,344 .50”[iv] – Based on Gaspard’s severance payment of $1,943.16 per week, this $2,344 .50 would translate into about 6.03 days of work for SEIU 1199 in 2009.
- “Obama-Biden Transition, $11,500 (income)”[v] – from Nov. to December 31st, Gaspard was paid $10,000 for his transition work, and then an additional $11,500 in 2009.
Questions:
- How did Gaspard work six days in January for SEIU 1199 h while simultaneously working for the “office of the President-Elect” during “January 1-16” of 2009?
- How did Gaspard earn, in those six days of work for SEIU 1199, “$17,238.56 [of] carried over leave & vacation,” in particular, after apparently having already been paid 2.5 to 4 months vacation pay in 2008?
- How did Gaspard earn a 9 week severance payout from an employer (SEIU 1199)? According to available SEIU 1199 financial reports (2000-2009), Gaspard was not paid by SEIU 1199 in years 2000, 2002, 2003, and 2004. For the year 2001, SEIU 1199 paid Gaspard only $3,723. It appears that in at least 5 of the 9 years Gaspard was not on the payroll or worked only a week or two.
An investigation by the House Oversight Committee is warranted. Unfortunately with Democrats so firmly in the pocket of Big Labor, it will take a Republican victory in this year’s elections before Rep. Issa will be allowed to issue a subpoena and begin an earnest investigation.
It has only been a few decades since the federal government created mandatory monopoly bargaining and granted labor union bosses the power to coerce workers to pay union fees. But, this coercive power has created huge treasuries that union bosses use to buy political power and turned democracy on its head.
This undemocratic and coercive political force skews the political process away from legitimate arguments over ideas, towards the raw use of political power to continually expand Big Labor’s power — through legislation, regulation, and government fiats — at the expense of American workers and their freedoms.
This kind of power breeds an arrogance that allows people to convince themselves that the rules are for the “little people” not the kingmakers – an arrogance easily seen in people who create ethics rules and then fail to live up to those rules.
Let’s face it; Gaspard is in the White House to coordinate SEIU political activities from inside its secured doors. SEIU and Big Labor do not need to lobby the White House; they own the White House. Gaspard need not meet secretly with union lobbyists in coffee shops, as others in the White House, because he is the embodiment of Big Labor.
Compulsory unionism and confiscation of worker freedoms must end to stop Big Labor-owned politicians and their continuous drive to erode worker liberties for personal political gain. After all, this is “the land of the free and the home of the brave,” isn’t it?
[i] Service Employees International Union
[ii] Revised 2009 SF-278
[iii] Revised 2009 SF-278
[iv] Revised 2009 SF-278
[v] Revised 2009 SF-278
Video: What comes after ObamaCare repeal? July 14, 2010
Posted by seeineye in : Politics , add a commentby Ed Morrissey
The Center for Freedom and Prosperity offers another in its Econ 101 series, but to be fair, this one’s a little more advanced — more like a 300-level course. Eline van den Broek delivers the lesson for today on ObamaCare and its repeal, and how that is really only step 1 of the necessary action needed to restore market forces back to the American health-care system. That would return the system to a status quo ante that still involves too much government intervention and disconnect from pricing mechanisms:
I wrote about the issue of third-party payers extensively last year, and it will be even more of an issue if Republicans succeed in dismantling ObamaCare. Van den Broek is entirely correct in pointing out that we didn’t have a free-market system for health care as much as we had one for health insurance, and even that wasn’t so free, thanks to endless government mandates at the state and federal level. The entire basis for the health care of most Americans is spending other people’s money through the overuse of comprehensive policies that only make sense in the warped environment of tax policy that doesn’t count health insurance coverage as income.
A quick look at the economics show that most people wouldn’t choose comprehensive coverage if given a rational choice and a level field. In 2007, the average individual comprehensive policy in Minnesota cost $3600 per year, or $300 per month. That would cover two, and perhaps three, clinic visits every month. Most healthy individuals only use a clinic once or twice a year, which means they throw away $3000 per year on coverage they never use. But why would people who get comprehensive coverage for $50 a month through their employer and pay no taxes choose catastrophic insurance instead when the employer doesn’t compensate them for making a wiser choice — and even if they did pay the difference in higher wages, the government would tax it as income?
As painful as it will be, repeal has to be followed by reforming the tax system to get rid of the distortion our current tax policies create in health insurance. We have to make the system more rational in order to get people into realistic and less expensive catastrophic coverage, and let them pay out of pocket for routine care, which will then become much more price competitive and more plentiful as providers shed the overhead costs of dealing with insurers. Repeal is just the first step to real reform, and if we don’t take the next step, we will put ourselves at risk that the next attempt at ObamaCare will not be reversed.
