Garrett: It isn't "wasteful" if it keeps my job

by: Thurman Hart

Fri Oct 31, 2008 at 10:10:47 AM EDT

We all know that Scott Garrett would watch his own mother die rather than let the government buy her heart medication. I mean, this guy is so anti-government spending that he probably sits around and burns dollar bills on principle.

So why was the Bush Administration throwing public resources at his re-election campaign in 2006?

Rep. Scott Garrett benefited from a White House effort to have top administration officials appear around the country, usually at taxpayer expense, with favored Republican candidates before the 2006 election, a House committee report says.

Make the jump - part of this is fluff, but part has teeth. Public-funded teeth that should be aimed at Garrett's backside.

Thurman Hart :: Garrett: It isn't "wasteful" if it keeps my job

Herb Jackson's story talks about a few visits from appointees that could be easily dismissed. Except for a few things.

Point one:

They include nine events during seven trips to Garrett's district; attendance at the Bergen County Republican Organization's Lincoln Day Dinner; and three appearances with then-Senate candidate Tom Kean Jr., including a "Hispanic rally" with Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez two days before Kean lost to Democrat Bob Menendez.

This is the old "separation of roles" problem. The President is the head of the executive office, but he's also head of the Party. But he shouldn't be blending the two jobs (that's why Karl Rove and a few others had a separate laptop provided by the RNC).

If the White House was sending public office holders, then it shouldn't be done alongside political campaigns. Remember when the GOP was all in knots because Bill Clinton made fund-raising phonecalls from the Oval Office?

Here's why it matters:

All but the Gutierrez fund-raiser were listed by the White House as "official" events, which, according to the House committee, meant the government paid for travel and expenses. The Kean events were all listed as "political," meaning his campaign was responsible for reimbursing the government's costs.
Gutierrez's fund-raiser with Garrett included an official meeting the same day, however, and his campaign finance report for the quarter when the event was held does not include any reimbursement.

Look, allowing campaigns to "pay back" the government amounts to financing by de facto loan arrangements. Except here, there was no "pay back". Oh, but it gets better:

The committee's report includes an email -- which is not connected to a Garrett visit -- where a White House official urged the Veterans Affairs Department to try to find an "official component" for a trip "to save the campaign as much $$ as possible."

See, a campaign event incidental to official business can be foisted off on taxpayers. So you set up an "official" visit with the VA so you can "incidentally" hold a fund-raiser the same day. Except it isn't "incidentally" if it is planned in advance. That's known in some circles as "conspiracy to defraud".

Garrett's spokesman appears to be auditioning for Wayne Bryant's defense team with this comeback:

Gasperino said the report "is a blatant, last-ditch attempt to tie Republicans to President Bush, and frankly, a poor one at that."
She also assailed Shulman for relying on the work of the Democratic chairman of the report, Rep. Henry Waxman of California, one of the House's more liberal members.
"If the Shulman campaign would like to capitalize on Waxman's comments, it's just further evidence that Dennis Shulman seeks to align himself with leftist elites who want to increase taxes on every American at exactly the time taxpayers are hurting the most," she said.

Yes, it is a poor attempt to tie Garrett to the White House by using official documents that show the White House plotting to use public resources to defend Garrett's seat. And, anyway, using government documents automatically stains one person with the political ideology of the person who chaired the investigation.

Apparently, the official talking point isn't good enough:

A White House spokeswoman said that the office directing the trips "has been here for decades" and operated "within the rules."

Yes, everyone did it - so that makes it less illegal for Scott Garrett to hypocritically use public resources to be re-elected to a district for which he wouldn't spend a dime of public money to help.

Got that?