Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Wisconsin TARP Recipients Spent $144,000+ On Lobbying, Contributions

Executives at four Wisconsin banks that have gotten nearly $2.4 billion in federal bailout money spent more than $144,000 on lobbying and campaign contributions to Wisconsin legislative candidates and the governor in 2008 when the economy tanked.

The biggest spenders were executives at M&I banks. M&I Bank Corporation in Milwaukee also received the most bailout funds - $1.7 billion. M&I bank executives contributed $68,400 to Wisconsin political candidates in 2008. Another $725 came from the bank's political action committee, and M&I spent an additional $59,124 lobbying state government last year.

M&I currently opposes a legislative proposal that would put wages owed to employees ahead of money owed to banks when a business goes bankrupt.

Associated Banc-Corporation in Green Bay received $525 million in bailout money. Executives from its banks contributed $8,975 to 22 legislative candidates and committees and another $1,750 to Governor Jim Doyle in 2008.

Associated Banc's president and chief operating officer resigned last week and gave no reason. She will be paid $1.65 million over the next 10 months as part of a separation agreement.

Anchor BanCorporation in Madison received $110 million in bailout funds after its bank executives contributed $1,800 to Doyle last year and Park Bancorporation in Madison received $23.2 million from the feds after its bank executives gave $2,100 to four legislative candidates and $1,250 to Doyle.

Overall, 14 Wisconsin banks have accepted just under $2.5 billion in federal bailout money so far.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What the hell is your point?

Honestly, you are sputtering nonsense here.

A few thousand dollars? Really? By employees who work for these firms?

You are chasing gnats.

Anonymous said...

Well it seems to me that we in Malaysia are suffering from high inflation and boom in our economy, we have to import in foreign labour for undesirable jobs that none of our citizens wants to work at. China, Indonesia and Singapore are also booming, an example would be a dessert I bought a month ago was $ 1.20 in local currency and currently is selling at $ 1.80 which shows high inflation... The job market is also good with 2 jobs available for 1 worker, leading to high wage growth, hence we have to import in labour. We found out after March 2009 that we were not going to go into a Recession, imagine our surprise when we were told we were going to go into a Recession, we suspect we were saved by China's boom and growth !