Baron Spins on Earmark Shadiness

With the earmark shadiness story a gathering storm, Baron Hill's staff has decided to put out a press release to again try and use the spin cycle to make the dirt of corruption go away.

In it, they detail the earmarks "obtained" by the Congressman, though none of the appropriations bills containing them have yet been passed.

Still absent from the press release is any explanation of why Baron decided to favor lobbying clients of his former employer, and a specific former client of his chief-of-staff-turned-lobbyist-turned-chief-of-staff, Ryan Guthrie.

Let's review, shall we?

Schneck Medical Center is set to receive $375,000 in funding for the expansion of their emergency room. The emergency room was originally designed to handle 15,000 patients annually, but currently serves 24,000 patients and the number continues to rise.

Harrison County's hospital was overcrowded too; so overcrowded, in fact, that they are building an entirely new hospital to accommodate the increasing number of patients.

Baron didn't get them an earmark.

But then, Harrison County Hospital didn't give Baron's former lobbyist employer, mCapitol Management, $30,000 in lobbying fees to get his current and former chief of staff, Ryan Guthrie, to lobby on their behalf.

I guess that was Harrison County Hospital's mistake.

They--like lots of other hospitals in the 9th District facing overcrowding and increasing patient loads--didn't play the "pay for play" game that Baron has been running.

Schneck did, so Schneck got a big fat juicy earmark.

Next Wave Communications is set to receive $250,000 to continue the development of secure wireless devices to outfit those who guard America’s nuclear weapons at the National Nuclear Security Administration.

Another earmark, another client of Baron Hill's former lobbyist employer.

Again, there are a lot of deserving small businesses in southern Indiana.

Many of them are doing innovative and important things that will benefit America, and some of them are doubtless doing things that will make America safer.

But they didn't get any earmarks, did they?

Nope, but Next Wave hired Baron's former employer to lobby on their behalf.

And what a coincidence! Suddenly Next Wave benefited from an earmark!

Who would have thought it?

There is a definitive history of Baron Hill requesting earmarks for clients of his former employer.

One earmark for an mCapitol client could be dismissed as a coincidence.

Two is no coincidence, it is a distinctive pattern of questionable behavior in the allocation of taxpayer dollars via the earmark process.

That should raise serious questions about the integrity of someone who campaigned upon a platform of "cleaning up Washington."