Doing The Math on a Reading Program Earmark

The Cajun Kennedys strike again, although the corruption is bipartisan:

Organization Requests Probe of Louisiana US Senator Landrieu
Randy Best, a top Republican donor and Bush pioneer, founded Voyager, an educational products company and rather than selling the company’s reading program to school districts, hired lobbyists to obtain earmarks for it. Although the House had appropriated $1 million for his program for the D.C. public schools, Best still needed a Senate sponsor. A lobbyist arranged a meeting with Sen. Landrieu, the chair of the Appropriations subcommittee responsible for the District of Columbia, to press for an earmark. Shortly after Sen. Landrieu met with Best, a member of Sen. Landrieu’s staff asked him to hold a fundraiser for her and he agreed. After the fundraiser, she received $30,000 in campaign contributions from individuals associated with the company — donors who had never before contributed to her. Four days after she received the money, she inserted an earmark into a D.C. appropriations bill, giving D.C. schools $2 million to buy Best’s reading program, which was unproven and had not been requested by the school system.

She’ll weasel out of it. Wait and see.

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