Wednesday, May 04, 2011

Think the National Debt is a Problem? You haven't seen the latest AZGOP FEC Report

What's wrong with this picture?

Total AZGOP debt, according to the FEC Reports:
January 2011 - $17,689.81
February 2011 - $7,505.41
March 2011 - $73,616.67!!!!!!!!!!

So, in one month, the debt owed by Tom Morrissey's Republican Party increased 10x?

What do you suppose the debt is for?  Well, thanks to the magic of the internet, I can tell you:

NameAmount This PeriodNature of Debt
Gammage & Burnham10000.00Legal fees
T-Mobile5149.31Cell phones
Cox Communications683.87High speed internet
Maricopa County Treasurer4865.89Property taxes
Americopy1954.66Printing
Aristotle International, Inc.2640.00FEC Reporting software
Steve Brown Direct Mail2052.00Party direct mail
CBIZ MHM, LLC7422.15FEC Reporting
Southwest Publishing & Mailing Co5892.11Party direct mail
Elaine Gangluff1327.68Reimbursement
Strategic Fundraising, Inc.7295.00Party telemarketing
Political Media, Inc.14334.00Web page consulting
Salmon, Lewis & Weldon10000.00Legal fees


(Here's the link to the report. Debts start on page 43, so you can play along)


Last month, the only debt on the books was $7422.55 payable to CBIZ MHM, LLC for FEC Reporting, and $83 to Political Media, Inc. for Web Page Consulting.


So in one month the party racked up $20,000 in legal fees, $5,000 for cell phones, and $14,000 for web page consulting?


Why did the AZGOP suddenly need to spend $20,000 on legal fees?  $10,000 each to two different law firms.


What was the $14,000 charge for "web page consulting"?  Did they really pay $14,000 for a new flashy menu on the AZGOP website?


And what's the deal with the $5,000 owed to T-Mobile?  $5,000 is a lot of cell phones.  There is also $300 in charges to Verizon wireless on Schedule B.  Holy phone bills.


Even more confusing are the entries to Cox Communications.  There are 3 entries for Cox in March: $680.53, $48.55 on Schedule B, and the debt of $683.87, all under the memo line "High Speed Internet".  That's a hell of a lot of internet for one month.


Total receipts for the month were just shy of $34,000.  So the debt for March is slightly more than double the income.


I'm sure Tom Morrissey will have a perfectly good explanation for the vast amount of debt the party racked up in one month.  Actually, strike that.  I expect that he'll keep silent, since that's been his strategy so far.

NOTE:  Read an interesting article by Steve Calabrese on this subject

4 comments:

Barbara Espinosa said...

I think some of this is incorrect I will check and if I'm correct will comment with the corrections..

Tony GOPrano said...

Barbara what is incorrect? These NUMBERS are in the filing by the Arizona Republican Party to the FEC! If they are wrong, then what the AZ GOP sent them is wrong!

Don't shoot the messenger. We didn't make this up.

Anonymous said...

I followed the link and the numbers all appear to be correct. As much as I wish they weren't ~DS

Anonymous said...

Yes, unfortunately the numbers are correct. Doesn't matter how anyone tries to spin it. These are the numbers that the AZ GOP submitted.