We spent nigh the duration of the very awful Barack Obama Administration chronicling in-depth the in-depth cronyism they serially, unilaterally shoveled at the Silicon Valley.
That rampant corruption – was a primary reason the Donald Trump Administration was chosen to succeed the Barack Obama Administration. The Trump Administration – has set about undoing much of the Obama Administration’s Silicon Valley cronyism.
But as we’ve so often noted: Trump’s biggest mistake upon arriving in DC – was not making many, MANY more people leave DC. There are many Swamp Creature-holdover holes still to fill in the Executive Branch – which the Valley continues to exploit.
The Valley has also upped their efforts with the Legislative Branch. Most unfortunately, that Republican-led body is weak in (oh-so-many) spots – and amenable to the Valley’s crony overtures.
Monster online retailer (and increasingly just about everything else) Amazon (market cap: $540 billion) – is on the verge of striking huge crony gold.
Amazon’s Potential Defense-Bill Windfall Spurs Industry Concern: “Amazon has quietly been formalizing and expanding its relationships with several federal agencies as Congress is weighing an online marketplace provision that could enrich the e-commerce giant by billions of dollars per year….
“After the company alerted the Homeland Security Department in April 2016 that agency officials already had several thousand accounts with Amazon, and several hundred more with Amazon Business, Amazon’s business-to-business unit, DHS began to consolidate individual government purchase card accounts into one centralized account, agency spokeswoman Lauren Blakeney said.
“All DHS components were onboard with the new program by March of this year….Amazon’s efforts to consolidate its business with DHS and AbilityOne comes as a congressional conference committee is deciding whether to include House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry’s controversial governmentwide online marketplace provision into the final 2018 National Defense Authorization Act — what some have termed the ‘Amazon amendment,’ in part because of the possible windfall the provision could bestow on the Seattle-based company.”
So the multi-billion-dollar crony table is being set – with both the Executive and Legislative Branches lending hands.
And speaking of not leaving DC:
“Anne Rung, director of government sector efforts for Amazon Business and the former U.S. chief acquisition officer during the Obama administration, participated in the talks with AbilityOne, Hoey said.”
Get that? A high-ranking procurement official from the Valley-Cronyfest Obama Administration – is now “director of government sector efforts for Amazon.” I’m sure that doesn’t help grease the skids at all. DC remains an utterly ridiculous, $4-trillion-per-year, motion-sickness-inducing revolving door.
One of many important questions this raises is: Why is Republican Chairman Mac Thornberry leading the Congressional charge to slough billions of government dollars per annum to Republicans-loathing Valley Crony Amazon?
We should absolutely stop feeding everyone these crony government dollars. Republicans should absolutely stop feeding any money from anywhere – to the anti-Republican hands that serially bite them.
Democrat-loving Valley Crony Amazon – is just such a masticator.
And this Amazon billions-per-year-cronyism – could very quickly morph and grow into tens-of-billions-per-year-monopoly-cronyism.
The ‘Amazon Amendment’ Would Effectively Hand Government Purchasing Power Over To Amazon: “Language buried in Section 801 of the House-passed version of the National Defense Authorization Act…would move Defense Department purchases of commercial off-the-shelf products to ‘online marketplaces.’ Theoretically, that means any website that offers an array of options for paper clips or office furniture; in reality that signals likely dominance for Amazon Business, the company’s commercial sales platform.
“Section 801 stipulates that the program should be designed ‘to enable Government-wide use of such marketplaces.’ Scale, then, is key. Over time, this change would give platforms like Amazon access to all $53 billion in federal government commercial item purchases.”
Soon the government monopoly – will be purchasing from a government-created Amazon monopoly.
And speaking of scale – this is Republican-led cronyism on a scale of which the uber-Leftist Obama Administration never, ever even thought to pursue.
To stuff-to-overflow the pockets of Amazon – a company that openly loathes Republicans.
This is really terrible policy – that is also really terrible politics.
The GOP ain’t called the Stupid Party for nothing.
Thankfully, this titanic stupidity hasn’t yet made it very far in the legislative process.
Republicans aplenty need to step up – and ensure it goes absolutely no further.
This first appeared in Red State.