It’s a bit of a problem for him, isn’t it?
Still not Greg Abbott
While critics were hounding Gov. Rick Perry a decade ago about his job-luring Texas Enterprise Fund, his lawyers went to Attorney General Greg Abbott to block the release of applications that supposedly had been filled out by the entities requesting taxpayer subsidies.
Abbott’s office, tasked with deciding which government records have to be made public, told Perry’s lawyers they must keep the applications secret under exemptions to state transparency laws, according to attorney general rulings and news reports.
Now, though, information contained in a blistering state audit shows that at least five of the recipients that were named in Abbott’s 2004 rulings — and which got tens of millions of dollars from the fund — never actually submitted formal applications. And if no applications ever existed, it’s not clear what Abbott was telling Perry he had to keep secret or why the public is just now learning that millions were awarded without them.
This is the sort of thing that people have in mind when they say the optics of something don’t look good for whoever. Stuff like this doesn’t help, either.
Republican governor nominee Greg Abbott has collected more than $1 million in campaign contributions from beneficiaries of a state business fund cited in a scathing audit for lax oversight of taxpayer dollars.
State law requires Abbott as attorney general to monitor state accounts and recover misspent money.
[…]
While state law requires that “at least monthly the attorney general shall inspect” state accounts, an Abbott spokesman said the state auditor has primary responsibility to check on funds.
Jerry Strickland of the attorney general’s office said Abbott has recovered millions of dollars in cases that have been referred by the comptroller during his tenure.
“Attorney General Abbott has successfully collected more than $740 million in funds owed to the state of Texas since 2003,” said Strickland.
None of that money involved the Texas Enterprise Fund, which has distributed $500 million since it was created 2003.
That may just be the weakest response to a reporter’s inquiry about a Bad Thing in the history of spokespeople. Pick a better boss to work for next time, Jerry.
One never knows how the public will respond to stories like these, or if they’re even aware of them. At least this one’s an easy one to tell – Rick Perry gave away hundreds of millions of your tax dollars in grants to big companies that didn’t even ask for them, and Greg Abbott said it was okay for him to not tell anyone about it. The word coverup does trip off the tongue easily enough.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis accused her Republican opponent Monday of using his power as attorney general to “orchestrate a cover-up” of misspending inside the Texas Enterprise Fund that, according to an audit, handed out taxpayer subsidies to businesses with little oversight.
Davis seized on reports over the weekend detailing Attorney General Greg Abbott’s decade-old rulings that various Texas Enterprise Fund records be kept secret. Abbott’s office, in charge of ruling what government records must either be released or withheld, found that numerous “applications” for the grant money were exempt from state transparency laws.
But a damning new state audit found that many of the companies never submitted applications, making it unclear what applications Abbott sought to block. Davis claims to have found the answer: She is accusing Abbott of declaring the records to be secret in order to hide what the audit turned up years later — a lack of oversight over millions of dollars in grant money.
“We need an independent investigation by appropriate state or federal authorities regarding the actions by the attorney general and the attempts to use the power of his office to cover up the transfer of millions of taxpayer dollars to companies whose applications he knew didn’t exist,” Davis said Monday at a news conference in Fort Worth.
Representatives of the Abbott campaign for governor and the attorney general’s office did not immediately return phone calls.
Not even to give a perfunctory quote about how Greg Abbott has always done whatever it is he says he’s done to protect our interests? My, my, they must be in a tizzy over there. This could really be something.
The growing scandal over the mismanagement of the Texas Enterprise Fund is having a major impact in the state’s political races, and has the potential to upset the conventional wisdom as we move into the final six weeks of the political season, officials tell Newsradio 1200 WOAI.
[…]
One Republican Party consultant, who asked not to be named, told Newsradio 1200 WOAI that this could be a ‘game changer’ in the race for governor, which has repeatedly shown Abbott leading Davis by between 8 and 12 percentage points.
“People can understand that this represents the concerns they have that politicians don’t take their tax money seriously,” the consultant said. “This reaffirms the attitude that ‘it’s not real money’ because it comes from the taxpayer.”
The expert added, “misusing and mismanaging taxpayer money is something that will stick with conservatives. They won’t like it at all.”
It’s a little premature to call something a “game changer”. If we’re still talking about this a week from now, if we haven’t been distracted by some other shiny object, then maybe. Believe me, I hope that’s an accurate assessment. I’ve just seen too many other “game changers” turn out to be not so much to get too giddy just yet. The best thing that can happen is for more information about this to come out, to add to the existing story. We’ll see about that. Burka, Trail Blazers/a>, and PDiddie have more.
A lot of the same issues the TEF audit uncovered would also be discovered with an audit of Houston’s 380s.
Ainbinder never filled out an application (which is supposed to be required) for the Ainbinder (Walmart) 380. The Ainbinder 380 itself should be audited. With 20% for project management and 20% contingency on top of that and not doing at least $500,000 of the estimated work, how did they spend ALL the money?
Self-counting of employees was another issue in the TEF audit. The HEB 380 says that ONLY HEB can count the employees (they do have to sign a sworn statement).