David and Daniel Byler's blog

Obama Receives $2.5 Million in Fundraising Help from Recipients of Earmarks

According to Newsweek, last summer, watchdog groups requested that Illinois Senator Barack Obama share records involving his smaller donors. He declined, and now new information is surfacing around his campaign accepting small donations from apparently nonexistent people whose contributions add up to sums exceeding the legal limit by a factor of four. While some of these small donors are now creating problems for Senator Obama, there are a number of large donors that have been causing him trouble for some time now.

The simple magnitude of donations to Senator Obama from recipients of his earmarks is staggering. He directly received over $500,000 dollars in donations from people who sit on the board of organizations he earmarked money to. Beyond that, he received a total of about $2,000,000 dollars in fundraising help from bundlers who received earmarks. In total, these $2.5 million in contributions raise important questions about Sen. Obama’s earmarking habits. This article highlights troubling cases in which Sen. Obama has given taxpayer money to some of his biggest fundraisers.

In 2008, Sen. Obama increased the Adler Planetarium earmark by 900% when the chairman and two vice chairmen together gave close to $250,000 to his presidential campaign. This story, originally researched by our group, made it to top level news organizations such as the Washington Times, Hot Air, Red State, The National Review and number of other news outlets. After further research, it has become clear that Senator Obama is handing out taxpayer money to more than just the members of the Adler Planetarium.