Roll Call: Senators Will Investigate How Tax Money Is Used for Administration Spin

[Patricia M. McBride]

It's about time!  And suspect the amount being spent is going to be huge with $0.40 on every dollar borrowed from China.

 

• By Meredith Shiner
• Roll Call Staff
• Feb. 29, 2012, Midnight

Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call

Sen. Rob Portman (left) is launching an investigation from his Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subpanel, asking federal agencies for an accounting of public relations and advertising contracts dating back to October 2008.

 

Sens. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio) launched a wide-ranging investigation into the Obama administration’s public relations and advertising spending Tuesday, sending information requests to 11 federal agencies.

The top Members on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management sent letters obtained by Roll Call to agencies asking for an accounting of all “contracts for the acquisition of public relations, publicity, advertising, communications, or similar services” dating back to Oct. 1, 2008, four months before President Barack Obama was even sworn into office.

“Over the past three years, we’ve seen accounts of wasteful federal spending on PR contracts to defend the administration’s unpopular policies,” a Portman aide said. “This investigation will further probe this administration’s use of taxpayer-funded spin.”

Though some, especially Republicans, might view the inquiry as a political attack on the administration in an election year, aides to McCaskill said that the oversight request is consistent with the former Missouri state auditor’s commitment to responsible and effective government. McCaskill is locked in a tight race for re-election herself and has been attempting to distance herself from Obama and the Democratic Party.

Still, aides suggested the initiative is a natural outgrowth of the committee’s work last year in investigating a $234,000 contract awarded by the General Services Administration to a Kansas City, Mo., public relations firm, Jane Mobley Associates, to deal with the fallout of a chemically contaminated federal complex in Missouri.

“Claire’s always been independent, and this is a body of contract oversight, where [if] we see something, we’re going to go after it,” McCaskill spokesman Trevor Kincaid said. “For Claire, good government is not a partisan thing.”

McCaskill and Portman are seeking detailed information on the contracts, including contract numbers, dates of the awards, names of the contractors or any subcontractors, the types of competition, the costs of the contracts, a “brief description of the contract scope and the work performed” and the agency policies or projects supported by the contract.

The information requests were sent to the heads of the Housing and Urban Development, Energy, Justice, Health and Human Services, Defense, Labor, and Agriculture departments, as well as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Consumer Product Safety Commission, Environmental Protection Agency and the National Labor Relations Board.

The agencies have been asked to comply with the subcommittee’s request by March 16.

Sources in both parties indicated Portman approached McCaskill with the idea but that the Missouri Democrat was enthusiastic about the subcommittee’s opportunity to get a broad view of how the White House has been using federal funds to pursue public relations opportunities. Though they concede that what the administration is doing likely is legal, committee aides said it is the panel’s responsibility to hold the government accountable and ensure that funds are being used effectively.

Senate pushback against the White House and how it spends funds to promote its own initiatives is not novel, however. In March 2005, Democratic Sens. Ted Kennedy (Mass.) and Frank Lautenberg (N.J.) sent a letter to President George W. Bush repudiating the use of taxpayer funds by agencies to produce and publicize what they said were misleading video releases. Earlier that year, the two Senators proposed legislation to permanently ban taxpayer funds for “propaganda,” and they asked the Bush administration to return the almost $240,000 the Education Department paid conservative commentator Armstrong Williams to tout No Child Left Behind.

Read more here:  http://www.rollcall.com/issues/57_101/Senators-Will-Investigate-How...