BlueBloggin

I find it very difficult to understand how Hillary Clinton can not manage the financial matters of her campaign will be able to manage the huge financial mess facing America. How can Clinton go around the country telling small business owners that she understand their problems. Since Iowa, Clinton has stiffed small business owners by not paying her bills. Isn’t Clinton part of the small business squeeze?

In the February FEC report, Clinton has 700 individual unpaid bills that are reported  as debts totaling $8.7 million.

It’s not just one small business owner or one isolated incident; it’s a pattern from Iowa to New Hampshire, to Massachusetts, to Ohio, to New York.

• Iowa’s Sioux City Art Center Board of Trustees $3,500 for catering and venue costs,

• New Hampshire’s Winnacunnet Cooperative School District $4,400 in event costs,

• Various branches of the Iowa-based supermarket chain Hy-Vee $15,000 for food, beverages and catering, and

• Ohio and Massachusetts branches of the theatrical stage employees’ union, $7,700 for equipment costs.

A pair of Ohio companies owed more than $25,000 by Clinton for staging events for her campaign are warning others in the tight-knit event production community — and anyone else who will listen — to get their cash upfront when doing business with her.

The owner of Top Job Services Inc., a cleaning service in Des Moines, Iowa, was hired in November of last year, prior to the Iowa caucuses, to clean the Clinton campaign headquarters on a regular basis.

• Reese provided the Herald with invoices, a listing of every day he was at the headquarters from November through January, and his bills. He said he has not seen one penny of the $7,561.70 he is owed.

  “I have never gotten anything,” said Reese, “I am a small business, and it puts a strain on you. I have contacted the office here, which is still open, every day. They keep telling me they are contacting the national office and they are cutting a check. The last time, I was promised it would be here on Feb. 4, then on my doorstep Feb. 5.”

Peter Semetis, the owner of a deli and catering business in Lower Manhattan, had been following the news and growing increasingly worried that he was not going to be paid for the assorted breakfast trays, coffee, tea and orange juice he had provided the campaign for an event in mid-December.

Mr. Semetis catered a Clinton event, a rally she did not attend, at the offices of District Council 37, the public employees’ union, on Dec. 15, charging the campaign $2,300, plus $192.63 in tax. Officials promised him that his business, Sale & Pepe Fine Foods, would be paid by check or credit card in a couple of weeks. After a few weeks passed, he started calling to see about the holdup.

Often he never reached anyone; other times he was told that his bill had been put through to the campaign’s headquarters in northern Virginia. So on Thursday, he went to small claims court and filed suit.
PORTSMOUTH — Rochester doctor Terry Bennett has finally been paid by the Clinton campaign for rental of a Portsmouth building he owns. Now, he says he will donate the $500 check to Barack Obama’s campaign.

Bennett said he believes the only reason the Clinton campaign paid for renting his 236 Union St. storefront is because he became the “squeaky wheel,” contacting the Herald last week in frustration because he had not been paid for more than a month.

“Thirty days went by, with no replies to phone calls, e-mails, no replies at all. Suddenly a newspaper article comes out. It was the worst publicity they could get. Three days go by and I get a check,” said Bennett.

Not only was he not paid, but Bennett said the campaign volunteers left the premises trashed. He said there were fast food containers all over the place and lots of campaign signs left behind.

How about this for hypocrisy, Clinton who has made health care the main theme of her campaign has $292,000 in unpaid health insurance premiums for her campaign staff. I hope they don’t need to go to the doctor or get medicine.

• The unpaid bills to Aetna were at least two months old, according to FEC filings.

• They show the campaign ended last year owing Aetna more than $213,000 for “employee benefits.”

• During the first two months of the year, the campaign did not pay down any of that debt. In fact, it accrued another $16,000 in unpaid bills last month, and it finished the month owing Aetna $229,000.

I hope business owners in Pennsylvania get their money before the circus leaves town.

Posted by nytexan March 31st, 2008 | Category: Clinton, Democrat, Election, FEC, Politics, primary | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL