Fiscal hawks hawked federal grants

Former Arizona Rep. J.D. Hayworth warned against “more and bigger government, reckless bailouts, endless deficit spending” when he announced for Senate. Rick Scott, the former health care executive running for governor of Florida, warns in an ad that “if we don’t stop the government from growing and spending, the Aemrican dream won’t be there for our kids.” And Shelby County, Tenn., Commissioner George Flinn has run a commercial warning that the federal government is “bankrupting us with bailouts” and “runaway spending and debt.”

All three Republicans have sung different tunes in the private sector, where they’ve profited from or helped advertise opportunities for financial support from federal government programs.


Hayworth’s primary challenge to Sen. John McCain was shaken this month by the discovery of a now-infamous 2007 commercial, in which he promoted supposedly free government grants for the company National Grants Conferences and told viewers: “We talk about it as if it's free money; let me remind you, it's not free money, it's your money.”

But Hayworth isn’t alone. Flinn, running for the open House seat in Tennessee’s 8th Congressional District, manages a self-help website called YourAmericanDreams.com that encourages used to apply for stimulus funds.

“There are grants for doing everything in the world you can think of,” Flinn says in a video on the site. “Maybe you can apply for one of these grants. Maybe you can get some money that the government’s spending.”

And Scott, who says in his ads that he would have fought “all of the stimulus money” as governor, has a partial ownership stake in XFONE, Inc., a telecommunications company that has boasted of received more than $60 million in Recovery Act grants and loans from the Department of Agriculture.

All three candidates have taken some heat for failing to practice what they preach. The Club for Growth, for example, knocked Hayworth’s participation in the grant-hawking ads, with club spokesman Mike Connolly saying the candidate “has some ‘splainin’ to do.” In a statement last week, Hayworth said appearing in the ad was a “mistake” and urged voters to focus on “the issues confronting us in 2010.”

But both Scott and Flinn are unapologetic for their involvement in business ventures linked to the stimulus. Scott spokeswoman Jennifer Baker said the wealthy self-funder had no influence on XFONE’s decision to take stimulus money and his campaign issued a statement outlining the stimulus-connected companies that Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, Scott’s primary opponent, has invested in.

“Rick’s position on stimulus funds are very clear,” Baker said, blaming McCollum for the flap. “This is just another pathetic attack by a career politician.”

And Flinn doesn’t see anything wrong with encouraging voters to apply for stimulus funds. His philosophy: If the funds are already being spent, voters in his state might as well take advantage of them.

“The fact remains that the government is spending the money regardless of how conservatives feel,” said Flinn spokesman Paul Ciaramitaro. “And at a time when billions is being spent on bailing out Wall Street and the auto industry, George Flinn is unapologetic about helping Tennessee small-business owners and entrepreneurs get a fair share of the money that comes from their tax dollars.”