BIG NEWS: Feds Paid $40 Million to Claire McCaskill’s Husband’s Businesses
Posted by Jim Hoft on Tuesday, October 9, 2012, 12:46 PM
Game Changer?
The federal government paid nearly $40 million dollars to Claire McCaskill’s husband’s businesses her first five years in office as Missouri Senator. During that time McCaskill has had influence over federal policy that has directly affected her family’s income.
Missouri royalty - The rest of the country has suffered but Claire McCaskill and her husband Joseph Shepard have done very well these past five years.
There are renewed calls for Democrat McCaskill to release her tax returns.
ABC3040 reported:
Businesses affiliated with the husband of Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill have received almost $40 million in federal subsidies for low-income housing developments during her first five years in office, though it appears only fraction of that has made it to the family’s bank accounts, according to an Associated Press analysis.
McCaskill’s Republican challenger, Rep. Todd Akin, says the federal payments should be a cause for concern among voters. He’s attempting to portray the Democratic senator’s family as a prime beneficiary of government largesse.
“There is a conflict of interest and a breach of trust with the citizens of our state,” Akin said in an interview with the AP.
McCaskill campaign spokesman Caitlin Legacki called such assertions “flat-out wrong.”
There is no evidence that McCaskill personally routed the money to her husband’s businesses. But she voted for some – and against other – bills that funded the federal housing and agriculture departments, which in turn provide subsidies to businesses with federal contracts to provide low-income housing.
The AP reviewed five years’ worth of federal personal financial disclosure statements filed by McCaskill, which list more than 300 “affordable housing” businesses in which her husband, Joseph Shepard, had at least a partial ownership during the time she has been in office. At least one-third of those businesses also appear to be listed as recipients of federal payments in an online government database that tracks spending.
The firms affiliated with Shepard appear to have received about $39 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Housing Service or the Department of Housing and Urban Development between 2007 – when McCaskill took office – and the end of 2011. According to McCaskill’s financial reports, Shepard earned an income of between about $400,000 and $2.6 million from those businesses in the years in which they received government payments.
McCaskill’s campaign declined to make the senator available for an interview about the federal payments and – except for Legacki’s brief statement that Akin’s assertion was wrong – also declined to let campaign staff participate in an on-the-record interview. But the campaign offered a variety of reasons why the payments pose no conflict of interest, including the fact that McCaskill opposed some of the funding bills and that those she supported also included appropriations for a wide variety of government programs.
The campaign said the vast majority of the housing subsidy contracts were initiated before McCaskill became a senator, although Shepard invested in some of them after she was elected and others were renewed during her term in office. The subsidies are intended to cover the gap between the rent paid by the tenant and the value of the housing unit as determined by the federal government. Consequently, much of the subsidy goes to the owners’ operating costs, such as mortgage payments or facility maintenance, the campaign said. Were Congress to not fund the subsidies, the federal government would be defaulting on its obligations, the campaign said.
Akin said McCaskill could have abstained from voting on bills that funded agencies involved in low-income housing developments.
But McCaskill then could have been open to accusations that she shunned her congressional duties – an assertion she has made against Akin for missing numerous House votes during his Senate campaign.
“She has to vote for or against appropriation bills – that’s what the citizens of Missouri hire her to do,” said George Connor, head of the political science department at Missouri State University. But he added: “It seems to me that she has influence over federal policy that has directly benefited her husband.”
McCaskill ranks as one of the wealthiest members in Congress.
And after five years as Missouri Senator, she’s even richer.
Related… The Obama-Pelosi stimulus made McCaskill rich.
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bg commented:
++
OT..
Australian P.M. Julia Gillard Unleashes Awesome,
Blistering Speech Over Opposition’s Sexism
glad to see some women are finally waking up
to the creeping Sharia via their government..
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SoLongSong commented:
I hope this takes off and McCaskill is TOAST. So much is going on with the Presidential election, it’s hard to remember that we need all the senate seats we can get too.
bg commented:
++
“There is a conflict of interest and a breach
of trust with the citizens of our state,” -Akin
there are several representatives in powerful political positions
who are so corrupted that Charles Rangel comes off as an Oliver
by comparison..
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Gus Warren commented:
The Prairie Chicken has been busy feathering her nest.
Godor commented:
Where is Harry Reid demanding HER tax returns???? Chirp chirp.
RobNclt commented:
We simply have to remove the Democrat majority in the Senate and add enough seats to give conservatives a super majority, something they have never had, to get things turned around. With the constant threat of a filibuster removed we can turn back some of the things Pelosi, Reid, and Obama have perpetrated on this country. It’s not a question of can we vote them out, we need to do it and WE WILL.
Laymen commented:
Uh-Ooh, McCaskill chickens – -have come home to roost, haa!
dwd commented:
Can’t wait to vote her out
Frank Cotton commented:
I’m sure this is just a coincidence.
….just like the obama team losing track of firearms that wound up in the hands of Mexican drug lords…
….just like the obama team rolling back the security forces in Libya shortly before our embassy was attacked…
…just like the OMB changing the methodology they use to calculate the unemployment rate, resulting in a reduction to 7.8% leading up to the election, right after a blowout debate loss…
…just like the obama team instructing defense contractors not to send out the legally required layoff notices right before the election…
I could add about 12 more items to this list off the top of my head, but it would be pointless to do so. Clearly each and every one of these occurrences only ‘appear’ to be corruption, but corruption occurred in none of these cases, including this McCaskill matter. After all, why would one assume that someone in the Senate would even be aware that millions of dollars in federal subsidies were routed to her spouse? We should just go forward believing that senator mccaskill was not aware of this, even though it would be logistically impossible for that to be the case.
We should also just go on believing that none of the instances of potential corruption in the obama administration indicate the presence of actual corruption- even though it would be both logistically and statistically impossible for that to be the case…
Bob commented:
Queen Claire is being outed. This is not her first issue with special treatment and questionable financial dealings. She charge airfare cost to taxpayers that were not exactly legal. This woman will get another pass from Harry Reid and the dems leadership.
Sandra Fluke commented:
This is a GAME CHANGER!!! I can’t believe the massive corruption of this woman and party!!! It is time to prosecute these people!!!!
bob litfin commented:
Claire is evil
Daniel commented:
Hook her up tp Obama care and the latest scam she has has has to go
Brian commented:
Pelosi and Reid refuse to release thier taxes. Harry Reid has never held a job outside of politics yet he has a reported net worth of over $10 million. Explain that one.
MikeyG commented:
Nothing to see here….move along……..
ChuhyonaKimhyonchul commented:
Democrats under investigation
These are the people we know about. Who else has their hands in the cookie that we’ll learn about this year?
Democrats under investigation
President Obama F&F Acorn Black Panthers
A.G. Eric Holder F&F on and on
Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Nepolitano
Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius
Senators
Sen. John Edwards
Sen. Bob Menendez (D-New Jersey)
Sen. Roland Burris (D-Illinois)
Representatives
Rep. Nancy Pelosi
Rep. Barny Frank
Rep. Laura Richardson
Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.
Rep. Alice Hasting
Rep. Maxine Waters
Rep. Charles Rangel (D-New York)
Rep. Bob Filner (D-California)
Rep. Jane Harman (D-California)
Rep. William Jefferson (D-Louisiana) – Indicted
Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-West Virginia)
Peted commented:
They sure grow big pigs in the Show Me State don’t they?
Jared Li commented:
No… say it isn’t so. A Democrat profiting off of others? It can’t be!!!
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