Thursday, July 4, 2013

Queen of tweeding

From the Daily News:

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn doled out hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer funds from the just-passed city budget to nonprofit groups whose board members and executives have given money to her mayoral campaign.

The Daily News examined the two dozen organizations that received the biggest grants from Quinn and found that 14 had ties to contributors who gave or raised a total of more than $210,000 in support of Quinn’s candidacy.

The contributions came from directors and staffers of those nonprofits and their immediate families, according to campaign finance records.

The groups received more than $3.1 million in grants in the city budget passed last week from the so-called “speaker’s list” of more than $15 million for nonprofits that Quinn controls, plus member items for her own district. Each of the 24 groups got at least $175,000.

The Council’s member item system has been attacked by watchdogs who say it fuels the perception that pols are using taxpayer cash to curry political favor.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hot dog! She looks like she's grabbing a weiner! Just sayin'...

Anonymous said...

It seems the no-talent guys gets plenty of money, as do the big institutions that should have capable in-house staff and should not need to curry favor with the politicians.

It should be illegal for a non-profit to engage in political activity.

Anonymous said...

"It should be illegal for a non-profit to engage in political activity."

What about a for-profit?

Just curious as to your thoughts here.

Anonymous said...

A for-profit pays taxes, which should be seen as the entry fee into the political game. If you're tax exempt, you're not--or, at least, should not be--in the game. Give up your tax exemption and you can play all you want.