McCain established "Reform Institute" as a front to funnel money to his campaign: AIG WAS MAJOR DONOR -- and he talks about "reform" and "change"
Kickin' Ass and Takin' Names
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081006/ames
John McCain is making a big show of criticizing the government
"bailout" of insurance giant AIG. But it turns out that AIG, which
received $85 billion in US tax dollars earlier this week, is one of
the largest donors to McCain's pet think tank, the comically named
"Reform Institute," which he co-founded in 2001 "in direct response to
the millions of Americans who, during the 2000 presidential campaign,
expressed profound disillusionment with corrupt fundraising
activities."
Apparently, AIG was so troubled over the issue of corrupt fundraising
activities that they loaded in as one of the top VIP donors in
McCain's nonprofit think-tank, whose website lists AIG in the "over
$50,000" donor category--although exactly how much over that $50,000
is still unclear. Nor is it clear why AIG had any business donating so
much money to a think tank whose work in no way overlapped with the
insurance company's--unless, of course, that money was just meant to
gain access to McCain.
The "Reform Institute" has taken a lot of heat as a front organization
designed to funnel money to McCain's political career. As Ari Berman
wrote, McCain's campaign co-chair, Rick Davis, served as the president
of the nonprofit Reform Institute for three years, earning $395,000 in
salary. Davis also headquartered his lobbying firm, Davis Manafort, in
the Reform Institute's offices at that time. He is just one of several
McCain people who passed through the Reform Institute's revolving door
while McCain prepared for the 2008 campaign. McCain formally stepped
down from his own institute in 2005, but he remains deeply linked to
the Reform Institute to this day.
So when McCain declared this week that "The government was forced to
commit $85 billion" to his mega-donor AIG, the question becomes, "What
forced you to do it?" The American taxpayers never got a red cent in
donations from AIG--but now, they're being forced by people like
McCain, whose career profited from AIG donations, to buy his backer's
massively indebted trash heap in what can only be described as the
worst business deal in this nation's history, or the worst example of
crony nationalization. AIG isn't just funding McCain's policy think
tank, it's also quite literally thinking for the presidential hopeful.
Martin Feldstein, who serves on the board of AIG, is one of McCain's
top economic advisers. Earlier this month, Feldstein gushed in the
Wall Street Journal over McCain's plans to cut taxes even further, and
to shift healthcare costs from employers to employees in a "tax
credit" scheme that many believe will solely benefit insurance
companies, at the expense of workers. Since AIG is--or was--the
world's largest insurance company, it stood to gain from McCain's
policies.
The one thing Feldstein does understand is insurance. Feldstein and
his cronies at AIG essentially bought themselves an insurance policy--
you might call this type of insurance "in case our insanely corrupt,
hyper-leveraged operation should ever go bankrupt" insurance--with
donations like the "over $50,000" given to McCain's Reform Institute.
That insurance paid off handsomely and like clockwork with the
government's $85 billion nationalization. It's exactly the kind of
insurance policy deal that every American has dreamed about, but never
known. And never will know.
Now that Feldstein and McCain have successfully worked the American
public in the AIG scheme, they have a plan for the entire American
economy. They're calling it "reform." And the first thing they want to
get their hands on is your health insurance, or what's left of it. So
if you've been asking yourself lately, "Can it get any worse?" the
answer was put best in a horrible '70s classic rock song by Bachman-
Turner Overdrive: "B-b-b-baby you just ain't seen nuthin' yet!"