A while ago Billmon speculated that taxpayer money is converted into funds for the Republicans through Pentagon propaganda contracts and the Lincoln group.

This would be a variation of the tax funded campaigns other countries have established.

So far nothing turned up with Lincoln. But all of the Republican K-street project is a tax money converter. Companies get pressed to fill Republican campaign funds and are rewarded with benefits which, in one way or another, hurt the taxpayers.

But it a very ineffective converting method and a waste of taxes.

Take the case of the Cerberus hedge fund where a Pentagon contract for $160 million was shuffled through committees by Republican Rep. Jerry Lewis for a lousy $110,000 of campaign donations. From the viewpoint of a Republican taxpayer and the Representative this is not much bang for the buck, but it is a legal way and anyway, it is not his money that is spend but yours.

A bit more effective might be the Wilkes/Cunnigham method, were defense contracts were given to paper companies for work that nobody in the Pentagon requested and that was probably never done. Some millions went to the party and the representative. So this was a bit more effective than the Lewis bribes. Unfortunately the details turned out to be illegal.

Josh Marshall is pointing to new and better scheme.

The president is from Texas as are DeLay and other top folks in Congress. The Texan governor is a Republican. These people are the best lobby Texas could ever have.

But still the State of Texas, through its governor, saw a need to hire a former DeLay aide to lobby in D.C. for state interests. That aide gave $75,000 out of the $180,000 contract to Republican campaign funds.

Another case turns up in Illinois were the biggest County in Speaker Denny Hastert’s districts hired a former Hastert aid to lobby by filling campaign funds.

This is a much more effective way to push tax money to one party than the Lewis bribe. This method is legal and it is better for the nation. The effect is the same as with the Lewis and Wilkes tricks, but less money is wasted on useless products.

Is this a better future of tax funded campaigns?