From the Donald McEachin campaign...GO DONALD!!!
Benny Lambert Finances His Campaign off the Backs of Our StudentsRichmond -Finally, today, five days late, Benny Lambert filed his required financial report with the State Board of Elections and that report shows paltry fund-raising except for a huge loan that Lambert gave his own campaign. His report shows Lambert raising only $24,050, less than his opponent, and then lending his campaign $100,000. The incumbent has these resources because as a member of the Sallie Mae board of directors, he has been profiting handsomely, to the tune of $1,839,307 in 2006 alone (1).
Those profits come from hard-working, dedicated students and their parents who borrow money to finance their education and then put in extra hours on the job to try and repay. Then those same profits go right into the pocket of Benny Lambert.
More importantly, as the incumbent touts his supposed education credentials, the interest rate on student loans continues to escalate. In 2006, Sallie Mae's rates rose by nearly 2% across the board under Lambert's watch (2). Our children deserve better.Moreover, Lambert, apparently, does not feel that state law applies to him because state finance reports were due at the beginning of this week, not at the end of the week. Lambert is the ranking minority Member of the Senate Privileges and Elections Committee, yet, he doesn't feel he needs to follow the very laws implemented by that Committee and the General Assembly.
Democrats continue to demonstrate their disdain for Benny Lambert's actions last fall and his lack of leadership and support for Democratic values and principles. Democrats choose to contribute their money to leaders they can believe in as Lambert finances his losing campaign off the backs of our students and their parents.
1. 2006 SEC Disclosures
2. http://www.salliemae...
To help Donald McEachin in his race against Benedict Lambert, please click here. Thanks.
Second, directors perform very valuable functions at corporations. Executing their duties with the level of diligence required to be a director takes time. In order to attract quality directors, organizations must compensate the individuals for their time. It does not appear to me that the compensation of Sallie Mae directors is out of line with other corporations. Do you think it is? Or are you questioning whether Senator Lambert is a qualified director? Or whether he has not executed his duties as a director in manner deserving his compensation as a director?
I also don't understand the comment about hard working people paying for student loans. Are you calling into question lending practices or general finance? Or are you questioning whether higher education should be financed or whether higher education finance practices are fair? Are you saying that these are ill gotten gains by Sallie Mae?
Finally, I think this diary is rather tangential to your quest to unseat this man.
As far as the facts in the SEC disclosures, these are all easily verifiable through EDGAR on the SEC website. For proxy statements, you can go to the filer's website under their investor relations page. I can't find anything on the McEachin campaign site referring to this.
I, for one, do not beleive that student loans should be run by a for-profit entity, and they certainly should not be handled by a company with the track record of Sallie Mae.
Being bought out (which earned Benny somewhere in the neighborhood of $1 million over a weekend) does not ease my concern in the slightest.
I am sure that Senator Lambert cares about students. However, his support for school vouchers and his membership on the Board of Directors and support of Sallie Mae demonstrate that his positions on policy are not representative of the Democratic Party.
Donald McEachin is a friend of the VEA, his strong stances women's right, and his strong support of fellow Democrats, ARE representative of myself and the Democratic Party.
The issue that they have been in court over along with Citibank and Education Finance Partners is concerning anti-trust. They were shutting out other lenders from student loan market, but does that represent predatory lending practices? In my mind, predatory lending is best represented by payday loan places where the APR is not clearly stated to consumers. Predatory lending to me represents a lending institution deliberately obscuring the terms of a loan in order to push someone into a harsh loan agreement that does not represent in any material respects equivalent loans made to similar creditors in the market.
I'd also note that Universities participated in the games that Sallie Mae and company were playing. Are people who serve on their board of regents guilty of making poor decisions in choosing to serve on them? Let me also clarify your position, in order to be a Democrat, you are saying there are certain corporations you cannot serve on the board of or rather you should choose not to?
Sallie Mae is being taken out of the public equity game, but let's say Citigroup asked you to sit on their board of directors. Would you say no, as Citibank has been charged by the FTC for predatory lending practices?
I just want two-sided analysis. We can talk about Lambert all day, the great decisions and the unfortunate decisions, but what do we know about McEachin's values and principles?
Freeman Hokie
Sen. Lambert gets paid entirely in stock and stock options from Sallie Mae (easily verifiable on Edgar), therefore the way he makes profit in any individual year is through stock sales. We tracked his stock sales from 2006 and found that he made 1.8M from exercising and selling SLM stock options. If you would like to verfiy our calculations yourselves, please follow this link : http://biz.yahoo.com... .
As for Sallie Mae's questionable practices, check out what the NY Times has had to say, just over this past week:
-Daniel Gray - Campaign Manager, McEachin for Senate
I read the NYTimes articles too, and still I question this statement:
Those profits come from hard-working, dedicated students and their parents who borrow money to finance their education and then put in extra hours on the job to try and repay. Then those same profits go right into the pocket of Benny Lambert.
1. Sallie Mae is a for-profit corporation, what do you expect? Every corporation makes profits from hard-working, dedicated individuals, except those that rely soley on B2B or government sales.
2. He is a director, should he not be compensated for his time and service to the corporation?
Is the argument that he is bad person because he was elected to board of directors of Sallie Mae by its shareholders? And further, that Sallie Mae is evil for financing higher education?
What has McEachin ever done for VT besides show up to an event for face time?
Hokie Hope!!!!
Hokie Hope!!!