Issa Subpoenas Web Firm with Ties to Obama Bundler

The Obamacare website contractor that was issued a subpoena by Rep. Darrell Issa is owned by a company with a major donor and bundler for Barack Obama's presidential campaign among its executives.

Issa, a California Republican and chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, subpoenaed Quality Software Services Inc. (QSSI) on Tuesday for documents regarding the development of the Obamacare website. 

Anthony Welters is the executive vice president of UnitedHealth Group, which purchased QSSI in 2012, and was a major campaign bundler for Obama during his 2008 campaign for president, according to the Center for Responsive Politics' OpenSecrets.org.

Editor's Note: 22 Hidden Taxes and Fees Set to Hit You With Obamacare. Read the Guide to Protect Yourself. 

During the 2008 election cycle, Welters and his wife Beatrice raised between $200,000 and $500,000 for Obama's campaign, and an additional $300,000 for the Obama inaugural committee. They donated $100,000 themselves to the committee.

The contributions paid off for Beatrice Welters, who served as the ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago until her resignation in 2012.

In addition to the Welters' activity for the Obama campaign, their sons Andrew and Bryant have given generously to Democratic campaigns and interests. 

OpenSecrets.org found they have donated $258,000 since 2007, including $30,800 donations to the Democratic National Committee in 2012.

QSSI, which spent more than $2.5 million on lobbying this year, won a large contract in January to build a federal data services hub to help run the complex federal health insurance exchange.

Via: Newsmax

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Why Democrats Can’t Embrace Public Sector Union Reform

“Public employees have a private interest in taking more and more of the taxpayer-generated revenue for themselves. In other words, public employees have a private interest in diverting public funds from public services to their wages and pensions. In this sense, the increasing numbers of public employees and their increasing wages and benefits threaten to hollow out public services in our country.”  –Roger Berkowitz, Executive Director, Hannah Arendt Center

The above quote explains quite well the intrinsic conflict of interests that accrues to public sector unions. This conflict of interest is the primary distinction between public sector unions and private sector unions. It is the reason that private sector unions can muster strong arguments for their continued relevance in society, whereas the very legitimacy of public sector unions is questionable. And lest anyone suggest that calls for reform – if not abolition – of public sector unions emanates solely from the “extreme right wing,” consider the provenance of the above quote, and go away. The highly regarded, intellectually elite Hannah Arendt Center boasts perhaps the most impeccable nonpartisan, anti-ideological credentials of any comparable institution in the world.

The reason Democrats don’t support public sector union reform is quite obvious. There is no special interest in America that donates more money to the Democratic party than public sector unions. The data in the table below makes this quite clear. If you go to the source of this data OpenSecrets.org, you will see that the vast majority of the $535 million contributed to Democrats between 2000 and 2010 came from public sector unions, whose membership in absolute numbers now exceeds that of private sector unions. Needless to say, in California, where public sector union spending on state and local campaigns and lobbying exceeds $500 million per two-year cycle, the same percentages apply.

Via: California Political Review

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