Repeatedly fleeced by ‘The Swamp’
EDITOR:
I agree with much of what Dr. Glenn Mollette stated in his “Infrastructure Bill Should Be a Cakewalk” article. We have spent far too many billions on wars arising from the greed of the “industrial/military complex.” The “industrial/military complex” has morphed in recent years to the “industrial/military/media/Big Tech complex.” It is also known as The Swamp. In January 1961, President Eisenhower warned the American people to “beware of the military/industrial complex” in his farewell address to the nation. Ike was prescient and prophetic.
The problem with Dr. Mollette’s article is that he omitted history and large swaths of the “infrastructure” problem. We have been here before. In 2009, Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. which Obama/Biden named “Shovel-Ready.”
It became an $862 billion taxpayer-funded boondoggle utilized to enrich Obama/Biden political cronies, and the promised bridges and roads never materialized.
As a result, Obama/Biden enriched themselves with quid-pro-quos and kickbacks (with Solyndra being the best example). This is how Obama lives in an oceanside estate and Biden lives in two sprawling oceanside estates.
On July 27, 2020, Breitbart reported that Shovel-Ready “cost $862 billion but barely made a dent in unemployment, since it was targeted at state and local governments and favored Democrat special interests.”
In September 2011, Solyndra filed bankruptcy after receiving $535 million in government-backed loans from Obama/Biden. In other words, with the aid of Obama/Biden, Solyndra officials took their millions and ran for their mansions — after they greased the palms of Obama and the “Big Guy.”
Even Wikipedia references the malfeasance with the “Shovel-Ready” scam by saying “investigation found Solyndra executives misled federal officials to obtain $535 million in government-backed loans, with the help of former President Barack Obama’s White House.”
Who was the face behind Soyndra? The dominant character was billionaire George Kaiser of the George Kaiser Family Foundation, who is listed as the 467th richest person in the world. He is also a Democrat who worked in 2008 as a fundraiser for Barack Obama and also served as a “campaign bundler” for Obama.
These are the facts. With Obama/Biden’s “infrastructure bill” of 2009 that did not produce substantive infrastructure, only 19-percent of the funding (source: Wikipedia) went for “infrastructure.”
Obviously, billions of dollars went for graft and corruption and political payback to benefactors. I, for one, do not trust Joe Biden to “see the error of his ways” and make his “Build Bribes Better” any different from the first boondoggle. How many times can the Democrats ask the American people to be naive and to relax and enjoy their fleecing? Even Democrats should be tired of being repeatedly fleeced by The Swamp.
Samuel T. Foust.
Powell