It's Our Party, And We'll Pay If We Want To

Telecom Policy Report, Jan 19, 2005

President George W. Bush will be inaugurated for a second term tomorrow in ceremonies that will cost some $40 million when all is said and done. Who is paying for all of this? According to numbers released yesterday by watchdog group Public Citizen, lobbyists and corporate America involved in the communications industry have contributed nearly $25 million so far, with the average contribution to the inauguration fund being $128,000.

Of the 194 contributors to the 2005 inauguration fund, Public Citizen says 97 percent are corporations or their chairmen, CEOs, presidents or owners. Many of them also were instrumental in raising huge sums for Bush's re-election campaign, some as much as $300,000 per check.

A number of lobbyists or lobbying firms contributed $400,000 to the inauguration fund, and many belong to the elite group of Bush fundraisers called Pioneers, Rangers and Super-Rangers, depending on how much of a hand they had in raising some $11 million during the last two Bush campaigns. Currying favor for the upcoming four-year term? Most definitely, but some - like Larry Griffith and Haley Barbour of Barbour, Griffith & Rogers LLC - are long-time contributors to the Republican Party.

The finance and investment community is the largest single group of contributors to the inauguration fund, with 45 companies and executives ponying up $6.3 million so far. Public Citizen points out that the Bush administration has been kind to this group, cutting a bundle of taxes that allowed the companies to keep more of what they made. that include capital gains, estate, income and personal.

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