Our Changing Globe

The top 10 recipients of the government’s $700 billion financial bailout plan (TALF) paid lobbyists around $9.5 million during the first three months of this year.

GM (General Motors Corp.) which just announced that it will most likely default on a $1 billion bond payment that’s due June 1, spent $2.8 million on lobbying in the first quarter of 2009.

GM has already received $13.4 billion in government loans and is pushing for an additional $5 billion.

Other bailout recipients that spent more than $1million in an attempt to influence future government decisions were;

• A.I.G – which has already received $70 billion
• Citigroup Inc. – 45 billion
• JPMorgan Chase & Co. – $25 billion
• Bank of America Corp., received $5 billion and spent $660,000 on lobbying which is 20% down from the last quarter of 2008.
• Wells Fargo & Company, $25 billion in bailout money, and $700,000 on lobbying.
• Goldman Sachs, received $10 billion and spent $670,000
• Morgan Stanley got $10 billion and spent $540,000
• U.S. Bancorp got $6.6 billion and paid out $170,000
• PNC Financial Services Group, received $7.8 billion and spent $135,000 which is almost double its last quarter’s lobbying costs.

The companies in question deny using bailout money for lobbying, but seven of them spent more attempting to influence the government than they did in the last quarter of 2008, and Craig Holman of the watchdog group Public Citizen said “It’s completely unjustifiable. They say they’re not using public money for these purposes, but in effect these companies are steering taxpayer funds to lobbying, and campaign contributions”, and added, “What AIG’s reporting is, in fact, influence peddling”.