The International Trade Commission has brought Fitzpatrick’s campaign finances under scrutiny after it published an estimate about legislation benefitting campaign donors in the chemical industry.
Campaign financing has been a hot topic this election as well as a main source of contention between Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick (R-Bucks) and challenger Kathy Boockvar. During Friday’s debate Fitzpatrick promoted transparency and criticized Boockvar for her party’s support of federal loans for now-bankrupt Solyndra.
A recent Roll Call article detailed the specifics of the ITC estimate and potential benefits to Fitzpatrick’s corporate donors who have contributed over $40,000 to his campaigns.
Labors groups including PA Workers’ Voice criticized Fitzpatrick for his acceptance the funds, emailing the Roll Call article to reporters along with the graphic seen below.
Rep. Fitzpatrick and other legislators proposed a suspension of importation duties on various chemicals including Isoviolanthrone Crude Dry Presscake and 4-Sulfo-1, 8-naphthalic anhydride potassium salt. Since these are used in production processes by chemical companies in the United States, such a suspension would result in a significant reduction of taxes paid by those companies.
There was speculation in May that these tariff bills would specifically benefit firms in Fitzpatrick’s district including United Color Manufacturing Inc. in Newtown, PA whose owners have been active contributors to the Fitzpatrick campaign. Many critics do not see a difference between tariff suspensions and traditional earmarks used to secure loyalty among a politician’s constituency.
The International Trade Commission has put together an estimate for how much the proposals would cost taxpayers. The lost revenue is equivalent to the potential monetary benefit that companies requesting a suspension of their importation duties would receive.
Fitzpatrick himself put forth 12 proposals of this nature, 11 of which would result in $5.2 million benefits to two companies in particular, both of whom are significant campaign donors.
Arkema Inc., France’s largest chemical company whose U.S. headquarters is located in King of Prussia, PA was cited by the ITC as a beneficiary of three of the proposed tariff cuts. Though Fitzpatrick’s May proposals did not list Arkema specifically, three of the proposals would benefit Arkema by 3.8 million dollars over five years.
The campaign donations do not violate any laws, and other representatives on both sides of the aisle have proposed similar bills in the past. However, the timing of the ITC estimate coming within weeks of the election does bring attention to Fitzpatrick’s campaign finances.
Fitzpatrick Chief of Staff Athan Koutsiouroumbas disregards such concerns as he argues that the tariff suspension benefits to companies such as United Color Manufacturing Inc. will have a positive effect on job creation in the 8th Congressional district.
“Considering the misguided stimulus cost taxpayers $278,000 per job created,” he told Roll Call. “$12,500 per job to keep over 40 people working at a single small business in our district and potentially across the country via this process is a prudent and efficient way for Congressman Fitzpatrick to help keep people working.”
7 Responses
@ Susan
No comment about the gravamen of my comment…hypocrisy?
Mr. Sklaroff…the natives were getting restless because you were boring them.
The fact is Fitzpatrick serves his donors by selling out the rest of us who will have to make up the lost revenue that the donors will profit from.
Evidence abounds that this constitutes merely a sloppily-written, pre-election hit-piece.
As noted supra, the gravamen of this piece is old-news, and its author failed to identify [Athan] Koutsiouroumbas as Mike’s chief-of-staff.
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This intrepid reporter would have been better advised to have covered what transpired this past Sunday @ Shaare Shemayim Synagogue’s “Candidates Forum.”
First, I asked Mr. Boockvar: “During the CC-debate, your wife said that you had received a check from your insurer because its administrative costs had been too high [31%]; what was the name of that insurer and to which insurer did you switch?”
He replied: “I wasn’t at that debate but, yes, it was Greater Atlantic; because things have been so hectic since August, we have simply renewed.”
I then asked why he remains with an insurer that he knew had been misusing premium-dollars.
He then replied that there are administrative costs that are inherent in all programs…and then trailed-off….:
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Second, when I spoke, I stated I’d listened to debate #1 and had attended the other two. I then limited my comments to Medicare/ObamaCare. I then clarified the Independent Payment Advisory Board’s powers, the fact that Mike would retain 2 components after rescinding the rest of ObamaCare, the GOP plan for interstate competition, and the fact that competition would resolve the problem that had been revealed during my prior exchange with Mr. Boockvar; specifically, I noted the inability to switch insurers if the government monopolizes the process and, thus, it’s only the fault of the Bookvars that they have not personally acted upon awareness of the potential corruption of their insurer…notwithstanding their public political stances.
The Q&A focused on a disability case, and I invoked knowledge gained from being a consultant to the SSA’s ALJs to clarify matters; it was then 10:30 and the crowd was getting a bit restless, so I decided that “discretion is the better part of valor.”
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Inclusion of the graphic added nothing to the content of the reportage; all it did was advertise the inherent bias of its author.
This is old news and the story is an attempt to slander Fitzpatrick.
What they fail to disclose is that the chemicals are not made in America and it would allow the company to expand operations by reducing the production costs.
Kathy Boockvar represents Cop Killers, Fitzpatrick Bucks Counties working families.
Keystone Politics coined it http://www.keystonepolitics.com/2012/05/mike-fitzpatrick-hock-big-pigment/
Big Pigment? Really?