George Kaiser and Solyndra

George Kaiser is, according to the Tulsa World, the “wealthiest man in Oklahoma, and the 31st richest in the country.” He’s got a net worth of $10 billion dollars.



He runs a family foundation “dedicated to breaking the cycle of
poverty through investments in early childhood education, community
health, social services, and civic enhancement.” Speaking to the
Rotary Club of Tulsa in 2009 about his foundation’s efforts to obtain
“stimulus” funds, he said approvingly of the trillion-dollar Obama
stimulus package: “There’s never been more money shoved out the
government’s door in world history, and there probably never will be
again.”



Kaiser is a top Obama donor, having raised somewhere between
$50,000 and $100,000 for the Obama 2008 campaign, along with a personal
donation of $53,500. He’s the primary investor in a company whose
executives and board members kicked in a total of $87,050 to get Barack
Obama elected. This kind of campaign loot earned Kaiser a remarkable
level of White House access. He’s visited the White House sixteen times since 2009.



Although he’s made a fortune from oil and gas, Kaiser is a deep
thinker about “energy independence,” by which he means forcing
Americans to use less gasoline. He’s proposed a “freebate” that would
grab billions in new taxes from gasoline purchasers, and redistribute
the money so that people who don’t buy a lot of gas will get a nice
government-handout bonus at the end of the year.



Oh, and the company he invested in, that poured so much money into
Barack Obama’s campaign coffers? That would be Solyndra. Based on
the amount of taxpayer money pumped into Solyndra, and the number of
corners cut to get it there, George Kaiser is the most important man in America. It’s a shame we didn’t get to know him better before we all took a bath with him. — John Hayward