Bush Inaugural Donors Not Stingy: Have Given At Least $50 million to Tsunami Relief

www.crushkerry.com (soon to be www.anklebitingpundits.com) ^ | 1/14/05 | www.crushkerry.com (soon to be www.anklebitingpundits.com)

[crushkerry]

1/14/05 We are updating this article, the original of which appeared on Jan. 2, 2005. The list contains new donors, bringing the total listed here to over $50 million not including in kind contributions.

A few days ago we pointed out the stupidity of those critics who said we were stingy and that we were spending more on the Bush Inaugural than we were on disaster relief. As we said in the piece, the Inaugural is being privately funded, so it is not as if the US were picking the party over foreign aid. Further Inaugural donations were made prior to the tsunami, so none of the donors were choosing politics over charity.

Those criticisms did raise an interesting question for us. What were these Inaugural donors giving to the tsunami relief efforts? We did some preliminary research on the subject.

Keep in mind what follows is only the results based on very preliminary research gleamed from news sources and corporation websites. There is no way to learn what the individual Inaugural donors, whom make up about 1/3 of the total Inaugural donors, gave to relief efforts. Also, keep in mind that last week was a shortened holiday work week where many people traditionally take vacations, so corporation websites might not be updated to reflect their charitable donations.

What we found was that the Bush Inaugural donors were very generous with their money - some $30 million was donated to tsunami relief efforts, not including in-kind distributions and donations of equipment and personnel were given by just 15 of the approximately 93 total Inaugural donors that we could verify. (And again, keep in mind that nearly 1/3 of that 93 are individual donors from whom no information about tsunami relief donations will be found)

We list them below. Keep in mind that this is only a short list of what we could find so far. We would welcome any additions to the list you could provide - please list them, along with the link, in the "Comments section".

A complete list of the donors for the Bush Inaugural can be found by following this link.

What follows is a list of what we found, so far, of what these donors have given to the disaster relief effort.

$250,000 Donors to Inaugural- Donations To Disaster Relief

Exxon/Mobil Corp.: $7 million.

Home Depot $500,000 to American Red Cross and matching employee donations up to $1,000 per employee.

Michael Dell: The founder of Dell Computers is giving $3 million from the charitable foundation started by he and his wife.

Altria Group: Pledged $1 million to date, underwrote $150K for first airlift into Sri Lanka by Americares charity Employee individual donations matched by company.

Mariott International: Mariott employees helping with on the ground efforts in distributing bottled water, food and other supplies.

Time Warner: Online division giving $200K, matching employee donations.

Ritz Carlton Hotel Company LLC: 130 deluxe rooms have been set aside for survivors, ballroom turned into a relief centre offering provisions of food and drink . The Ritz Carlton, Doha, has offered accommodation for two nights and has dedicated a hospitality area with a specially-set up Internet café for holidaymakers to contact their families by e-mail.

Chevron/Texaco: Authorized its offices in the (Southeast Asia) region to donate what's expected to be hundreds of thousands of dollars to local relief efforts

AT&T: Donating $100,000 plus matching employee donations

Bristol Myers Squibb: $1 million

Ford Motor Company: Undisclosed funds and matching employee donations.

UPS: $3 million

$100,000 Donors to Inaugural - Donations to Disaster Relief Aid

Coca-Cola Corp.: Donating $10 million.

Goldman Sachs: No specifics but says it has donated a "significant amount"

Microsoft: $3.5 million plus an additional $3 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

International Paper Company: $200,000 plus matching of employee contributions.

GMAC: $1 million plus matching employee contributions up to $1 million, plus donation of vehicles to move supplies and medical equipment

Boeing Company: $1 million plus matching of employee donations.

Pepsi Cola: $1 million plus donations of products, including bottled water.

Oracle: Undisclosed amount in matching employee donations.

SBC Communications: $2 million to date, more pleged in future. Pleged additional $250K per year from 2005 to 2009)

Qualcomm: $1 million

Union Pacific: No amount listed. Matching employee donations.

$25,000 Donors to Inaugural - Donations to Disaster Relief Aid

HSBC: $1 million to Red Cross and Red Crescent

MCI: $1.1 million from matching employee donations plus $100,000, as well as 20,000 free calling cards donated for victims and aid workers.

[crushkerry]

Ping

[ravingnutter]

As we said in the piece, the Inaugural is being privately funded, so it is not as if the US were picking the party over foreign aid.

Someone needs to inform the DUmmies, I heard one on the TV last night complaining about the cost and how we could have spent that money better elsewhere.

[marblehead17]

ping

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

Good work!