DOJ Indicts Democratic Lawmaker for Corruption
Martin Matishak, The Fiscal Times
The Justice Department has indicted Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-PA) on almost 30 federal counts of political corruption.
The 11-term congressman and four associates were indicted on 29 federal charges, including bribery, money laundering, falsification of records, and multiple counts of bank and mail fraud, the department announced Wednesday.
Related: Billions in Unfinished Business as Congress Heads Out for Vacation
The charges against Fattah and his associates stem from his failed run for Philadelphia mayor in 2007.
Fattah and the others "embarked on a wide-ranging conspiracy involving bribery, concealment of unlawful campaign contributions and theft of charitable and federal funds to advance their own personal interests,” according to Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell.
Justice alleges that Fattah borrowed $1 million from a wealthy donor during his mayoral bid and that he returned $400,000 in unused funds and developed a scheme to repay the remaining $600,000 by tapping charitable and federal grants through a local non-profit the Pennsylvania lawmaker created.
Federal officials also allege that the Fattah sough to repay supporters by offering federal grants and used funds from both his mayoral and congressional campaigns to pay down his son's student loan debts of around $23,000.
"Public corruption takes a particularly heavy toll on our democracy because it undermines people’s basic belief that our elected leaders are committed to serving the public interest, not to lining their own pockets,” she said in a statement.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said that Fattah has stepped down as the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies subcommittee.
Stat of the Day: 0.2%
The New York Times’ Jim Tankersley tweets: “In order to raise enough revenue to start paying down the debt, Trump would need tariffs to be ~4% of GDP. They're currently 0.2%.”
Read Tankersley’s full breakdown of why tariffs won’t come close to eliminating the deficit or paying down the national debt here.
Number of the Day: 44%
The “short-term” health plans the Trump administration is promoting as low-cost alternatives to Obamacare aren’t bound by the Affordable Care Act’s requirement to spend a substantial majority of their premium revenues on medical care. UnitedHealth is the largest seller of short-term plans, according to Axios, which provided this interesting detail on just how profitable this type of insurance can be: “United’s short-term plans paid out 44% of their premium revenues last year for medical care. ACA plans have to pay out at least 80%.”
Number of the Day: 4,229
The Washington Post’s Fact Checkers on Wednesday updated their database of false and misleading claims made by President Trump: “As of day 558, he’s made 4,229 Trumpian claims — an increase of 978 in just two months.”
The tally, which works out to an average of almost 7.6 false or misleading claims a day, includes 432 problematics statements on trade and 336 claims on taxes. “Eighty-eight times, he has made the false assertion that he passed the biggest tax cut in U.S. history,” the Post says.
Number of the Day: $3 Billion
A new analysis by the Department of Health and Human Services finds that Medicare’s prescription drug program could have saved almost $3 billion in 2016 if pharmacies dispensed generic drugs instead of their brand-name counterparts, Axios reports. “But the savings total is inflated a bit, which HHS admits, because it doesn’t include rebates that brand-name drug makers give to [pharmacy benefit managers] and health plans — and PBMs are known to play games with generic drugs to juice their profits.”
Chart of the Day: Public Spending on Job Programs
President Trump announced on Thursday the creation of a National Council for the American Worker, charged with developing “a national strategy for training and retraining workers for high-demand industries,” his daughter Ivanka wrote in The Wall Street Journal. A report from the president’s National Council on Economic Advisers earlier this week made it clear that the U.S. currently spends less public money on job programs than many other developed countries.
