Democrat Dirty Laundry: Mass Dem Funnels Millions in Taxpayer Dollars to Wife's Employers
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Mass Dem Funnels Millions in Taxpayer Dollars to Wife’s Employers SPIN CYCLE:Democrats Promised to ‘Drain the Swamp’ and Sweep Corruption out of Washington
“‘Drain the swamp’ means to turn this Congress into the most honest and open Congress in history. That’s my pledge — that is what I intend to do,’ Pelosi stated in an interview with NBC’s Brian Williams.” (Brian Williams, “Rep. Pelosi poised to make history,” NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, 11/08/2006) RINSE CYCLE: Rep. Lynch (D-MA) Claims No Favoritism, Yet Only Agencies that Employ His Wife Receive Funds “US Representative Stephen F. Lynch has engineered four federal grants for a community health center and another three grants for a nearby substance abuse program, organizations for which his wife, Margaret, is an employee or board member. Lynch arranged the passage of $760,430 in federal earmarks for the South Boston Community Health Center. Margaret Lynch is the center’s director of marketing and development. Earmarks totaling $881,018 were appropriated for the Gavin Foundation, a residential substance abuse program. Lynch’s wife was named to the foundation’s unpaid board just after it received its first earmark in 2003.
The earmarks for the two organizations totaled $1.64 million. For both organizations, the funding was for substance abuse services. Lynch could cite no instance in which he has obtained earmarked funds for any other substance abuse treatment facility in his district, which includes much of the southern part of Boston and 19 other cities and towns.
For the coming fiscal year, Lynch is seeking $190,000 more for the health center and an additional $350,000 for the Gavin Foundation, according to Lynch’s official US House website. This year, for the first time, members of Congress are required to disclose requests for earmarks, which are congressionally mandated expenditures that House and Senate members have long used to fund favored projects in their districts.
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“Steve Ellis, vice president of programs at Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan budget watchdog group in Washington, said any earmark directed to an organization with personal ties to a congressman can be troubling, even if fully disclosed.
‘While both of these may be laudable organizations achieving important goals, it always concerns us when lawmakers are directing federal funding towards entities that their family is involved in,’ Ellis said.
Ellis said Taxpayers for Common sense is not critical of the goals of the health center or the foundation. Instead, he said, the organization is concerned about an appropriations system with the potential to award funds based on personal ties, rather than merit. He said the current earmark system, which presidential candidate John McCain often derided in the 2008 campaign, is “a broken process.’
Lynch’s efforts on behalf of the two organizations date to his service in the Massachusetts Senate. He was elected to the House seat in a special election in 2001. William J. Halpin Jr., the health center’s chief executive, said that when he came aboard as director in 1998, the center was ‘in financial crisis.’ Halpin, in an interview, said that Lynch arranged for state funding of $771,000 ‘and got us bailed out.’’
The year before, the health center had a $1.8 million deficit, according to Halpin, who said he had ‘sleepless night’ about the finances, including whether he would have enough money to pay his staff.
That assistance came two years after Margaret Lynch went to work at the health center. Lynch said in her e-mail that she reduced her hours from 35 to 27.5 hours a week in 2004 because of child-care demands, with a proportionate reduction in her salary. On Friday, Maher, Lynch’s spokeswoman, said Margaret Lynch is now paid between $50,000 and $55,000 a year…” (Marino Eccher, “Lynch’s wife tied to agencies he won grants for,” Boston Globe, November 10, 2009) To read the full article, click here.
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