A wealthy Democrat family from Missouri is holding a fundraiser for President Obama in early October. According to donate.barackobama.com, the cost of admission is $25,000 per person or $35,800 per couple. Exciting news, right?
It turns out, though, that the family hosting the event benefitted from stimulus money. Tom Carnahan, whose house the event will take place at, owns the Wind Capital Group, and recieved a $107 million credit in the 2009 stimulus for energy projects. Politico reports the comparisons to Solyndra:
Tom Carnahan, a scion of Missouri’s most prominent Democratic political family, is listed on Obama’s campaign website as a host of a $25,000-per-person fundraiser to be held in St. Louis on October 4.
His energy development firm, Wind Capital Group, was helped by a sizable credit authorized in the stimulus, for an energy project in northwest Missouri.
Republicans argue that it’s inappropriate for the Obama campaign to raise money from a donor who has benefited directly from the Recovery Act.
Missouri Republican Party executive director Lloyd Smith compared the situation to the Solyndra affair, in which the Obama administration reportedly rushed federal support to a green-energy firm that subsequently collapsed.
“At a time when Barack Obama is under fire for steering hundreds of millions of dollars in stimulus funds to a failed company linked to a major campaign donor, it is stunning that he would come to Missouri and raise money with another recipient of stimulus cash,” Smith said in a statement to POLITICO. “Sadly, Missourians have come to expect this kind of pay-to-play from the Obama administration. November 2012 can't come soon enough.”