Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska is trying to get your tax dollars to give to his son’s software company. He only wants $7,500,000. Oh, and he didn’t disclose that his son works for the company.
Nelson’s current $7.5 million earmark for software helps 21st Century Systems Inc. (21 CSI), which employs the senator’s son, Patrick Nelson, as its marketing director. 21 CSI gets 80 percent of its funds from federal grants, mostly from earmarks. With nine offices scattered among states that are represented by appropriators in Congress, the company in recent years has spent $1.1 million to lobby Congress and $160,000 in congressional campaign contributions. “As of April,” the Omaha World-Herald reported, “only one piece of [21 CSI] software has been used — to help guard a single Marine camp in Iraq — and it was no longer in use.”
What Ben Nelson has done here is not outside the norm, but it is not wat the Congress is supposed to be doing with your tax dollars. We need to support Senators like Tom Coburn who consistently fight against government waste.
